


holdin my horses but jumpin the gun

by bravestyles



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anti-Depressants, Arguing, Depression, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Social Anxiety, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, disorganized eating due to depression, mild alcohol dependance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-19
Updated: 2020-11-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:55:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 47,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27627788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bravestyles/pseuds/bravestyles
Summary: In a thick of depression, Harry has ruined everything, including his relationship with Louis. Before it's too late, he has to do everything in his power to get it all back.
Relationships: Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson
Comments: 58
Kudos: 173





	holdin my horses but jumpin the gun

**Author's Note:**

> ANOTHER QUICK TAG: there's a brief vomiting scene and the suicide attempt is an attempted overdose
> 
> title: husk - keaton henson
> 
> i hope you like it, it's a little shorter than my usual works!!

-

The flat is empty. Quiet. It should be; Louis left an hour ago to go to his integrative care class, and he won’t be back for another two hours. By then, Harry will be in their bed, tucked under the covers on Louis’ side, dead. He wonders if that will be long enough for him to become cold to the touch. 

It’s going to be peaceful. That’s what Harry keeps telling himself; the pills he has left over from when he had surgery on his wrist a few years back will do the trick. They have to. It’ll be like sleeping. He just has to take them, get into bed, and close his eyes. That’s all. That’s it. And the panic he feels right now, that’s not doubt. It can’t be. He’s thought this through, over and over and over again, for months, it’s -- it’ll be peaceful. It has to be. 

It’s November first, Harry’s going to kill himself, and it’s going to be peaceful. 

After he’s taken the pills, it’s nineteen minutes past noon. By the time he stops staring at himself in the mirror, overthinking a decision that is the easiest choice he’s ever made, it’s 12:24. He crawls into bed, on Louis’ side like he planned. He pulls the blankets over his shoulders, ignoring how breathless he feels. It’s fine, it’s -- peaceful, it’s going to be peaceful. He closes his eyes, clenching them shut, and slowly, he convinces himself to loosen up. To reduce some of that tension, he takes long, calming breaths, inhaling the scent of Louis’ cologne, and runs his fingers over his pillow. 

It’s fine. It’s going to be peaceful. 

He doesn’t know how long it takes for regret to kick in, but it’s long enough for him to force himself to try and shut it down, thinking it’s too late. It has to be, he can’t -- the pills must be in his system by now, it must be too late, he can’t -- fucking shit, no. No. He tries to calm himself down: peace is the goal here. He takes more calming breaths, and again, right when he’s managed to calm himself down, he starts to panic again. 

At first, he thinks it’s natural. Nobody _wants_ to die, except. . . that’s sort of his goal here, isn’t it? Him choosing suicide is him showing that he _wants_ to die, that’s sort of the whole bloody point. So maybe that voice in the back of his head that is screaming at him to get up, to throw up the pills, _get out of bed, get out of bed, get out of bed_ \-- maybe he should listen. Maybe -- God, he feels sick. 

_Get out of bed, Harry, get out of bed, get out of bed, spit up the pills. Go do it, you’re wasting time. You don’t want this, get up, get up. You don’t want to die, not like this._

“Fucking shit,” he cries out, jerking up and yanking the covers off of him. His eyes glide across the clock as he hurries to the bathroom. 12:50; is thirty-one minutes enough for the pills to dissolve, to break apart and separate to start the completion of their task? He has no idea. He has -- shit. _Shit._

He drops to his knees, hard, in front of the toilet. His body is hot and he’s crying and regret is choking him, fear aiding its power. This is bad. This is really bad. And he becomes much more frantic when he can’t coax himself to vomit right away. God, how awful would it be if he couldn’t get himself to throw up? He’d die anyway, after he decided that’s not what he wants to do, and that wouldn’t be peaceful at all. 

He starts talking to himself when his fingers aren’t in his mouth, a string of words coming out of his mouth that he thinks are supposed to form a pep talk but fail. “Come on,” he keeps saying. “Come on, come on, come on.”

After a few minutes, he debates calling Louis. Louis’ a fucking nursing student after all; he should know what to do in this situation. But that’s -- no. If he’s not doing this today, then he can’t tell anybody that he ever wanted to do it all. Absolutely not, that’s out of the question. He just needs to fucking _throw up, fuck_. 

It works. Everything comes spewing past his fingers and into the toilet, and once it stops and he can’t get out anymore, he flushes the toilet without looking to see if the pills are in the toilet. If they were, then that’s great, but if they weren’t -- Harry can’t take that kind of anxiety. Either they’re gone or they’re not, and he won’t be able to get them out no matter how hard he tries. 

He sits there for a while, leaning his cheek against the toilet bowl, his chest heaving and fingers slick with his spit as they rest against his thigh. God, what did he just do? What did he just _do?_ Or almost do, or maybe successfully did -- he still has to wait and see on that one. But what the _fuck_. How come that seemed so fucking easy for _months_ , and now he feels like the world’s biggest idiot for even thinking that’s an option? 

It occurs to him that he’s sat on this same tile so many times before. He’s had his fair share of awful hangovers, especially in the last six months or so. There was that one time he puked out of the blue from pure stress, too. And he sat here two months ago, when Louis was sick. He rubbed his back and whispered to him quietly like that was the type of thing they still did. It was so awkward afterwards; Louis clearly wanted comfort, but not from Harry. Never from Harry anymore. And that’s all he had in front of him, but he still chose having no comfort rather than just letting Harry help. 

Point is, he’s sat here more times than he could count. And every time, whether he was by himself or not, he stood right back up. So, that’s what he does. He stands up, flushes the toilet again for good measure, and walks to the living room. For a moment, all he does is stand, completely confused how to do this now, but he forces himself to sit on the chair. He sits there, perfectly still, eyes on the clock for the longest time. After a while, he accepts that he isn’t going to die, that he spit up the pills in time, and he’s flooded with relief. So much of it that he cries. What would have happened if he had been successful? He wouldn’t have known that he’d regret it so much. 

Harry sighs, slowly sitting back into the chair. He doesn’t want to die, but now he has to figure out how to live. 

-

_**“they told me, ‘kill what’s killing you,’ but now I’m all alone.”** _

**_raphael - flower face._ **

-

When Louis gets home, he has a steaming coffee in one hand, a textbook in the other, and his bag hanging off his back. Sighing loudly, he shuts the door, sets his things down, and kicks off his shoes. He checks his phone, leaning against the kitchen counter, and Harry watches him intently, wondering if it’s always taken this long for him to say hi. It’s like he’s forgotten that he doesn’t live alone. 

It takes two full minutes for Louis to look up, and he looks straight at Harry, already somehow looking slightly irritated. By how zeroed in his gaze is, he knew where Harry was sitting in the living room, tucked into a ball on the chair still. He doesn’t say anything at first, glancing down at his phone once more. Eventually, he finds Harry’s eyes again, and he still looks annoyed. 

“Nick texted me today. Said you have your midterm paper due tonight and you haven’t turned it in yet.”

Harry stares at him wordlessly. Part of him is thinking, _that’s what you have to say to me? That’s it? After what I almost did today?_ But of course, that’s not fair. Louis has no idea what Harry did or didn’t do today. 

“Do you not care about your education at all, then?” Louis snaps, standing up straighter. He scoffs, shaking his head. He looks so disappointed. Ashamed. Defeated is probably the better word, but Harry can’t know that Louis has given up on him, not today. He’s realized that every day for the better part of these past six months, but tonight, he can’t take that, not when he almost gave up on himself. 

“Whatever,” Louis says, sighing. He grabs his bag off the floor and swings it back over his shoulder. “If you don’t care, I’m not going to even try.”

“It’s just a bloody paper,” Harry snaps back. That’s not what he should be saying, probably, but he doesn’t know how to talk to Louis anymore. This -- the preemptive annoyance, the snide remarks, the snapping -- is all they’ve known how to do lately. 

Louis glares at him. “It’s twenty-five percent of your grade.”

“Worry about yourself,” Harry bites out. “You’re still the only one between us who has ever failed a class, and it’s not going to be very fucking hard to keep it that way.”

It’s a low blow. The lowest of blows, probably. Deflecting is shit, humiliating Louis on purpose is wrong, insinuating that he doesn’t even have to try and he still won’t fail like Louis did is shameful. The worst part, though, is that the only reason Louis failed that class first term of last year is because his mother was sick and he was distracted, and Harry just went ahead and threw that pain back into his face. 

Harry can’t remember the last time that he cared about saying something that hurt Louis. 

“Yeah, okay,” Louis says, the anger in his voice not stamping out the hurt completely. He steps back, looking uncertain, before shaking his head and grabbing his coffee. “Remind me of this conversation when I’m the only one who graduates this year,” he says, raising his coffee towards him like a toast, and then he turns around and heads straight back out the door. 

For the first time in far too long, Harry cries over what’s happened to them. Just yesterday morning, Harry was sitting at the kitchen table and fuming over a fight he had with Louis, thinking all sorts of terrible things about him and not regretting it a bit, but now. . . Now he wishes Louis would have stayed in tonight. Now he wishes that he didn’t drive Louis away from his own bloody home because he can’t keep his mouth shut for two fucking seconds. 

It’s hard to tell who even ruined them. Harry started their downfall, that’s clear as day, but he has no idea who accelerated it or lit the final match. All he knows is that a five-year relationship shouldn’t have gone down into flames as quickly as it did. 

-

They met in high school. At a play, it was -- it feels stupid look back at now, which is wrong and disturbing and a little heart wrenching, because every time he used to think about how they met, it’d make him smile. Everything has been ruined now, stained and blackened, morphed into something entirely different. Harry’s pretty sure that’s a defense strategy of some sort: if he pretends like things were always bad or stupid or a waste of time, then it will hurt less when Louis inevitably leaves him. 

Anyway. Harry went with a friend to the school play, and afterwards, Harry followed her back into the dressing rooms so she could say hi to one of her friends. Harry was leaning against the wall, texting, when Louis just strolled right up to him and talked to him like it was the easiest thing in the world. Either they hit it off right away, or Harry was too desperate for a boyfriend and latched onto the first guy that looked at him. Depending on the day, he goes back and forth between which of those is true. 

Harry was sixteen, Louis was seventeen, and now it's been five years and they have a flat together and go to the same university and can’t even spend five minutes together in the same room anymore. 

If Harry is being honest with himself, he started their end in May of last year. There was something inside of him that just _cracked_ it feels like, like maybe the stress of law school finally got to him or he gave up on pretending like he was fine. From May onwards -- maybe sooner than that, he can’t know for sure -- the anger in Harry’s stomach grew. It felt suffocating then, so now. . . It’s consumed him, he’s pretty sure. It’s taken up every part of him, and when it had nowhere else to go, it started going after Louis, too. 

He says it started in May because that was the first time he snapped at someone he loved so viciously that an apology couldn’t fix it right away. It was Liam, Harry was drunk -- because that started happening a lot in May, too -- and he was getting on Harry about studying for some exam he had and Harry just fucking exploded on him. 

It wasn’t the last time that would happen. 

He’s ruined his relationship, and nearly all of his friendships. He says ‘nearly’ because it still hurts too much to let himself recognize that he has not a single friend left. Liam and Niall -- they started pulling apart from him quite quickly, not close enough to him to excuse and forgive his actions. Nick was next, which is -- God, Harry was so mean to him. So mean. There wasn’t any one fight that tore them apart; Nick just got sick of Harry being pissy all the time and blowing him off constantly and making uncalled for jabs that he called jokes. And then Zayn, his best friend in the entire world, probably, left his side. 

At the end of June, just after final exams were over, they were at someone’s parent’s house, having drinks and celebrating the end of their second year together. It was the five of them plus a dozen or so other people he didn’t know, and the entire night, Harry was moody. Louis was leaving him alone, probably trying to avoid a fight, and Harry was sticking by Zayn since he didn’t want to be by anyone else.

“You need to slow down, mate,” Zayn told him, motioning to the beer in Harry’s hand. “There’s no point in getting that drunk tonight.”

“There’s no point in staying sober, either.”

Zayn left it alone for a while, ignoring it every time Harry got up to go to the kitchen and grab another beer. But after far too many drinks that Harry lost track of, he saw Zayn share a look with Louis across the room. 

They lived together, the three of them. He, Louis and Zayn. Zayn wanted to move out of his parents’ house, but his mum didn’t want him moving in with people she didn’t know and he couldn’t afford to live on his own, so Harry and Louis offered him a place to stay. His mum adored Harry, so it wasn’t an issue, him moving in. He lived with them for two years, only to move out after that night. 

Louis stood up and made his way over to them, and immediately, Harry felt cornered. When Louis set a hand on the back of his neck, Harry squirmed away from the touch. Louis sighed. 

“You need to calm down on the beer,” Louis whispered to him, leaning against the chair Harry and Zayn were squished together on. “That’s your -- what? Seventh? In an hour and a half?”

“I don’t know,” Harry said moodily, not looking at either of them. 

“Harry,” Louis tried, and Harry scoffed, turning to glare at him. 

“How the fuck do you expect me to want to be around any of you if I’m not completely wasted?” he snapped, and Louis pulled back, looking hurt.

“Come here,” Zayn seethed, standing up. He grabbed Harry’s wrist, tugging him upwards. “Come talk to me. Outside.”

“I didn’t mean you two,” Harry said in an attempt to lessen the hurt on Louis’ face. He let himself be pulled up and tugged outside, and he didn’t realize until the door shut behind them that Louis hadn’t followed them. 

“What the hell is going on with you lately?” Zayn had yelled, shoving at Harry’s shoulder. “Why are you being so bloody _mean_ all the time?”

All the beer must have caught up to him by then because he doesn’t remember much of their fight or afterwards. He remembers -- he knows he said some cruel things to Zayn, some things that were so uncalled for and such low blows, but he doesn’t remember anything specific. He remembers Zayn cried. He tried to hide it as he shoved Harry, hard, and stormed into the house, but Harry saw the tears in his eyes. And he remembers Louis coming to find him outside, chewing him out and asking what he did to make Zayn so upset. They went home after that, just he and Louis, because Zayn refused to be anywhere near him. He moved out and into Liam and Niall’s flat four days later, and they’ve barely talked since. 

Losing Zayn was probably the last kick to Harry’s sanity that sent everything crumbling down even worse than before. He lost his best friend, a flat mate, and all of his boyfriend’s respect in just one night. 

That summer, Louis drowned himself in work and Harry stayed home all day by himself. It wasn’t as bad as it is now between Louis and Harry for the most part of the summer since Louis got so good at avoiding him, but slowly or maybe all at once, they just got sick of each other. So, so sick of each other. Louis was fed up with him and Harry was fed up with himself, which bled into him hating everyone else, too, and it -- it’s so hard to explain, isn’t it. It just happened.

It was a hot night in July as he was eating dinner alone for the millionth night in a row when he decided that he was going to kill himself. It was in August after the billionth fight with Louis that he decided he’d do it November first. And once that was set into stone in his mind, somehow, he found new lows. He became even more vicious, and he stopped talking to his family completely, and everything that was being held together by a thread fell apart completely. 

He ruined everything in his life. Everyone. Because he thought he could escape it all, avoid all consequences, by killing himself. He figured it didn’t matter what he did because he was going to be gone soon anyway, and now he has a boyfriend who hates him and a mum who stopped calling and he doesn’t even want to _think_ about his grades. It was never in the plan to deal with any of this, to fix any of it, and now he’s drowning in a mess that he doesn’t know where to start in cleaning it up. 

-

Louis. Louis should be the start of fixing this, probably. Because Louis is one of the best things that has ever happened to him and he’s one of the best people that he knows. Because Louis didn’t deserve any of these last six months and still hasn’t left him, even though he has every right to. Harry doesn’t hate Louis, no matter how much it feels like he does. And losing Louis is not an option. 

The problem is, he doesn’t know how to change the new dynamic they fell into, the one where they don’t talk to each other at all until they absolutely have to or they want to yell at each other. They haven’t had sex since the beginning of September, and it was. . . let’s just say that haven’t had good sex since August. Or maybe July. 

On November second, Harry wakes up and the only thing he can think about is that he was supposed to be dead by now. That, if he hadn’t backed out at the last minute, his body would probably be in some morgue right now. He thinks the same thing on the third, and the fourth, and the fifth. It’s not until a week later that he can even try to figure out how to talk to someone. 

Harry probably hasn’t had a healthy conversation with someone in literally months. He doesn’t go to any of his classes except for the one in which attendance is mandatory, and he doesn’t talk to anybody there. He has no friends, he doesn’t talk to his family, and Louis and Harry don’t fucking _talk_ anymore. They snap and they shout, but they don’t _talk_. It sounds like an excuse, but Harry’s pretty sure he doesn’t know how to have a conversation with anyone anymore. 

It’s a Saturday when Harry makes his first attempt. He wakes at noon and stays in bed until two before he gets up. It’s after he’s pissed that he realizes Louis’ home when he shouldn’t be. He has his clinicals on weekends; he should be at work. Before, Harry would have spent as much time in the bedroom to avoid Louis, but today, he forces himself to at least _try._

Louis’ on the couch with an open textbook in his lap as he talks on the phone. With his mum, Harry realizes as he goes to the kitchen and grabs something to eat. After everything that has happened, Harry is just thankful that they were completely fine during the time that Louis’ mother was sick. He could be there for Louis, he knew _how_ to be there for him, and that’s something he’ll always be grateful for. 

“We’re not talking about this right now,” he hears Louis say. And then, “No, Mum, I’m serious. Not right now. I have to go, anyway. I have to study. Yeah, love you, too, bye.”

Harry feels legitimately scared as he stands in the kitchen, a bowl of cereal in his hands. He has to go out there and talk to Louis. About something, he doesn’t know what yet. But that shouldn’t be _scary_ , God. How did they get here? How did they let this happen?

Harry can’t convince himself to sit with Louis in the living room, so he sits at the kitchen table. It’s close enough, anyway, considering how small the flat is. They’re still technically in the same room; that’s a good first step. 

It takes Harry four whole minutes of a silent pep-talk for him to convince to turn slightly towards Louis and ask, “I thought you had your clinical today.” After he’s said it, he regrets it. He doesn’t want to play nice, not when he’s still so angry at everything, but that’s -- he can’t keep giving into that. He can’t ruin them completely. 

Louis almost looks offended, is the thing. He glances up from his textbook, then slowly moves his gaze to look at Harry. After a few seconds, he says, “They didn’t need me today.”

“Oh.” He licks his lips nervously and clears his throat. “What -- what are you studying for, then?”

And Louis must see it as some sort of jab because he scoffs and his gaze turns hard. It’s fair, honestly. Harry has made him feel stupid plenty of times. If he’s insecure about school because of Harry, then that is Harry’s fault. 

“Do you even know what classes I’m taking this semester?” Louis asks hotly, and Harry wants to snap that yes, actually, he does. But then Louis says, “Or what hospital I’m working at right now? Or what ward I’m even in?” And no, Harry doesn’t know that. He has no idea. Louis rolls his eyes at his silence. “Exactly.”

“What classes am _I_ in, Louis? Do _you_ have any idea?”

Harry doesn’t want to be a jerk but _come on_ , he’s trying. He’s _trying_ , and almost immediately he got shut down. 

Louis looks furious. “Property law,” he snaps. “Law and literature. Health law. Immigration law. Copyright law.” He cocks his head, eyebrows furrowed. “Did I get them all?”

“What the fuck are you trying to prove?”

“You’re doing awful in all of them,” Louis snaps, avoiding the question. “I talked to Nick last night. He said he looked at your record and your highest grade is a _C_. What the fuck are _you_ trying to prove?”

“That’s _illegal_ ,” he says, scoffing, and Louis throws his hands up. It is, though. Nick shouldn’t have told Louis that; he shouldn’t have even looked at Harry’s grades himself. Nick’s a TA for his property law class, and Harry was so excited this time last year that he was going to finally be in his class, and now here they are. Harry has showed up to that class three times this entire semester, each time to come in, take an exam, and leave.

“I didn’t fucking ask,” Louis says. “I didn’t want to know. I already knew you were failing, and he made it _my_ problem. That’s your fucking issue, not mine.”

“Mind your business, maybe.”

“Tell that to Nick. Oh, wait. You’d have to actually go to class to see him.”

The words, _I almost killed myself a week ago_ nearly explode out of him, and he barely manages to bite his tongue in time. He turns back around, away from Louis, and closes his eyes. He can’t tell that to Louis; ever, but most certainly not out of anger or spite. 

After fifteen minutes pass, Louis gets up from the couch and heads to the backroom. Harry’s already annoyed by that a little bit, so when Louis comes back five minutes later with his backpack on his shoulder and leaves the flat, he gets even more annoyed. Really, really angry, and then he just gets sad again. 

There’s no fixing them, is there? It’s too late. It must be. 

-

Harry doesn’t stop trying, because if he does, that would mean there was no point in stopping himself on the first of November. Things have to get better. They just have to. 

Harry asks about his mum one day. Immediately, he’s shut down. 

“Do not,” Louis says sternly with a glare so mean that it puts a pit in Harry’s stomach. Louis’ standing in the kitchen, stirring some frozen stir-fry in a pot, and he pauses so the impact of his glare is heightened. Harry gets the message. 

“Your sisters, then,” he amends awkwardly, and now Louis’ looking at him like he’s gone insane. 

“I don’t know, Harry, how is _your_ sister?”

It’s incredibly difficult avoiding giving into the part of him that wants to snap. He takes a deep breath, presses his hands together tightly and says, “I don’t know. But I know that you know about your family, and that’s why I asked.”

Louis stares at him for a few seconds before he goes back to stirring. “Why, did my mum call you or something? Or my sisters?”

“No. I just -- Lou.”

No, no, God, that sounds so wrong. _Lou_ \-- shit, no. He lost the right to call him that a long time ago, and judging by Louis’ expression, he agrees, too. 

“I just want to know,” he says quietly, tears burning his eyes for no good reason. He’s been crying a lot since November first. Can’t seem to stop. Louis hasn’t noticed yet. 

It takes Louis a full minute to answer. 

“They’re fine,” he says, and he sounds so close to snapping. He feels it, too, then; being civil is almost impossible now. “They’re,” he sighs. “Lottie has a boyfriend. Phoebe’s doing shit in school. Daisy’s hoarding the little twins like they’re her own. And Fizzy -- I don’t know. Fizzy is Fizzy.”

Harry can’t talk for a few seconds, the tears too hot in his throat. He has to keep swallowing and blinking in order to get past them, and once he’s sure he has, he clears his throat. “You shouldn’t let Phoebe get away with that. Get on her case now, or. . . or she’ll pay for it later.”

Louis glares at him again, probably thinking that Harry’s using that as some way to talk about his own schooling, but Harry gives him a thin smile that almost instantly drops. Louis’ gaze softens a little before he shrugs. 

“Yeah. I know. If she keeps that shit up once she gets to uni, she might ruin her life.”

Harry sighs tiredly. “I’m not ruining my life,” he says, more so because that’s what he is pretty sure Louis wants him to say. Or something. He doesn’t know why he says it, he just does. 

“Are you sure about that?” Louis asks, an edge to his voice. He shrugs again, turning off the stove. “Besides,” he says, stepping away from the stove. “I’m talking about my sister, not you.”

He leaves the living room, and as soon as Harry hears the bedroom door click, he has to hide his face in his elbow to quiet a sob. 

-

Harry aims for trying to talk to Louis, however small it may be, at least once a day. And by talk, he means no snapping or jabbing or dirty looks; even if it’s just a quick good morning, that’s okay. If that’s all they can handle on that day, it’ll have to do. Harry’s not stupid: he did this. If Louis doesn’t want to talk to him, he doesn’t blame him. 

Harry thinks they’ve been doing a little bit better than before, and then they get into a massive fight over _nothing_. But it’s never about anything, not really, is it? One second, Harry was trying to ask Louis about class, and then Louis made a snide remark and Harry blew up and so did Louis, and it’s -- it made him cry. In front of Louis this time, and Louis got even angrier, then. 

“Why the fuck are you crying?” he shouted, throwing his hands up in the air. “No. You don’t get to do that. You are not the _victim_ here. _You_ started yelling at _me_. You started _all_ of this.”

Harry was still angry as all hell, but he couldn’t talk around the tears so he stormed away, choking on a small sob as he went. That was yesterday, and the tension between them this morning has been suffocating. 

It’s early afternoon, fifteen days after Harry decided not to kill himself, when Louis comes out of the bedroom dressed like he’s going somewhere. Harry watches him intently from the kitchen table, and when Louis makes a move for the door, Harry asks where he’s going. 

“Why do you care?” Louis snaps. They haven’t asked each other where they’re going or where they’ve been in a long time. 

“Because I asked,” Harry says tiredly. 

Louis turns to look at him, annoyance all over his face. “I’m going to hang out with the boys. Is that alright with you?”

God, he’s going to see Zayn. _Zayn._ Harry wonders if they talk about him sometimes, if they all know that he’s a wreck and a shit boyfriend and a low-life. They must talk about him; it’d probably be more awkward to _not_ talk about him, right? He wonders if Zayn is curious when Louis talks about him, if he asks questions, or if he’s still mad and tries to change the subject whenever Harry is brought up. 

It’s been two weeks since Harry decided not to take his own life, and fixing things with Louis isn’t working very well. Maybe he’d have better luck with Zayn; if he can get Zayn back in his corner, maybe that’ll force Louis to give him a chance, too. Maybe all Harry needs is one win to get him going. 

“Can I come?” Harry asks, hopeful, and Louis scoffs loudly. 

“Absolutely not.”

Harry pulls back, hurt. “Please?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Louis nearly shouts. He shakes his head at him, looking at a loss of words. “They’d kill me for taking you. Nobody -- God, Harry, nobody wants to be around you anymore. I’m not trying to be a jerk, but that’s the truth. Nobody would want you there.”

“Not even you?” Harry asks, and shit, there are tears in his eyes again. He drops his eyes to the table so Louis won’t get mad about him crying again. 

Louis makes a shocked sound, and, softly, he says, “No, Haz. Not even me.”

Then why hasn’t Louis left him. _Why?_ Clearly he’s not happy, clearly he hates Harry, so why won’t he just _leave?_ Harry doesn’t want him to, but God. That was _mean._ That _hurt._ Harry is so sick of hurting all the time. 

“Just let me try,” Harry pleads. “Let me -- let me just try. Please.”

“Why do you even want to come?”

Harry shrugs sadly. “Because I miss them,” he mumbles, hating how weak that sounds. He’s not ready to be weak in front of him, not when Louis can hurt him so easily. ‘“I miss,” he sighs, closing his eyes. “I miss Zayn.”

“Then I’m really not taking you,” Louis says, shaking his head. “Zayn doesn’t want to talk to you. Ever again, I’m pretty sure. You’ll just piss him off, Harry, and we want to have a good time.”

“Then I won’t talk to him. I’ll leave him be.”

“You won’t talk to anybody,” he says flatly. “You won’t, you’ll just sit there and drink, and I’m not doing that tonight.”

“I’ll talk. I’ll try to talk to them,” Harry tries weakly, even though he knows that he probably wouldn’t. That he would sit there, quiet, and his presence would throw off the whole mood. He hasn’t been to a social event sober in. . .God, he doesn’t even know. So he can’t promise he won’t do that, either. 

“You don’t even talk to _me_.”

Harry sits back in the dining room chair, dragging his hands over his face. He lets out a long sigh, at a loss of what to say next. He can’t promise anything. He can’t. Louis doesn’t want to take him, and Harry can’t force him to. 

“Why do you look like you’re going to cry again?” Louis asks quietly, sounding very much like he doesn’t want to but feels obligated to anyway. “What is going on with you lately?”

Harry debates on his answer. Again, he considers telling Louis the truth, but -- no. Just no, he can’t do that. But he can tell him some version of the truth, can’t he? That would be okay. Even if it makes Louis think he’s weak, maybe -- maybe that can be okay, too. Louis’ trying here, even if it’s just a little. 

“I hate myself,” he says carefully. “A lot. And I’m trying to fix it.”

“Don’t you think it’s a little too late for that?”

Harry shrugs again. “I don’t know. I really don’t.”

There’s a lengthy silence, but Harry doesn’t fill it nor does he look up from the table. He’s not giving up anymore of himself today. Louis can say or do whatever he wants now; he can leave, or he can stay, or he can let Harry come. No matter what he does, it’s okay. It has to be. 

“Fine,” Louis says after a moment, not sounding happy about it. “Get dressed and meet me in the car. You have five minutes.”

He leaves, then, and Harry whips his head up to look at the door, shocked. Dread and relief clash heavily in his belly, making him lightheaded as he stands, but he has to hurry so he pushes past it and heads to the back room. 

-

He can’t remember the last time he was in the car with Louis. 

He keeps saying that, that he doesn’t remember the last time he did something, but it’s -- God, he really fucked everything up. Everything. He’s been a stranger for months, to himself and everyone he loved, and it’s hard to figure out why nobody tried to shut him down. He pretty much exploded, hot, red anger spewing everywhere, and people like Niall and Liam stepped around it and Zayn and Nick got burned by it and ran and Louis stayed with him in the heat, but none of them -- _nobody_ \-- tried to help him. Because he needed help, didn’t he? If not help, then maybe just a strong talking to or a wake-up call or something, and nobody did any of that for him. And that’s. . . this is all on him, he knows that. All of this, all this mess he created; it’s _his_ mess. But he doesn’t know how it got this bad. 

“If they ask us to leave,” Louis starts, and his voice makes Harry startle from where he’s tucked against the door, trying to gain some distance between them, “or -- you. If they ask you to leave, then we’re leaving. You don’t get to fight.”

“Okay,” Harry says quietly, and he watches as Louis’ tighten on the wheel. 

“Is it okay? I mean, is _any_ of this okay to you?”

“Of course not.”

Louis glares at him. “I don’t even know why I’m taking you. I swear to God, Harry, you’ve fucked with my head somehow. I don’t know how to say no to you, even after everything.”

“I think that’s called love,” Harry says, nearly snapping, and he regrets it immediately, _immediately_ , because he knows what Louis’ going to say before he says it. As Louis tenses and eyes him curiously, as he hesitates at what to say, Harry tries to brace himself for what’s to come.

“I don’t think we should have this conversation right now,” Louis says, quiet, like he knows he’s hurting him. Even if he didn’t say it, they both know what he wanted to say. _I don’t love you anymore._ Or maybe that he never did. Louis turns to look at the road, frowning. 

“Why?” Harry asks hotly, shrugging dramatically. “It’s as good a time as any.”

“Because I have to treat you like a two-year-old now, and if I know anything from helping raise my siblings, it’s that you don’t get toddlers worked up before taking them somewhere where you want them to behave.”

Harry rolls his eyes, shifting to glare out the window. Louis is so fucking insulting sometimes, this isn’t all just Harry. Louis got vicious, too. And God, does Louis know how to hold a grudge. Better than anyone. Harry’s wasting his time here, probably. 

It’s so odd, how quickly his way of thinking can switch based on his moods. One second, he’s determined to fix this between Louis, and the next he wants Louis to just fucking break up with him already. 

Harry’s pretty sure they’re close to the boys’ flat when Louis says, “Niall’s parents got divorced, so don’t bring them up. And don’t ask Liam about any relationships, he’s having a rough go at things. And don’t ask Zayn about -- well, just don’t talk to Zayn, okay?”

Harry rolls his eyes, and Louis shakes his head. 

“No, Haz. Seriously. Don’t talk to him. He’ll hurt you, and you’ll hurt him, and I don’t,” he sighs, turning into the parking lot of the building. “I don’t want either of you getting hurt more than you both already are.”

“But I want to _fix_ it with him. How can I fix it with him if you won’t let me bloody talk to him?”

“You don’t, because you can’t.” And the way Louis says it, how unfamiliarly soft his voice is, means that he’s being serious. He’s not trying to be cruel by telling Harry the truth. 

“He was my best friend.”

“And you were a lot of things to all of us, and you stopped being every single one of them.”

As Louis turns into a parking spot, Harry rubs his hands over his face. He shouldn’t have come here. He shouldn’t have thought he could do this, or that they would want to see him. He shouldn’t have stopped himself on November first, and he shouldn’t be thinking that. 

“Come on, then,” Louis says, sighing, as he removes his seatbelt. “Let’s get this over and done with.”

“Why’d you take me if you’re just going to be mean about it?”

Louis scoffs, giving him a look. “Because if you still think you have a right to come here, then you need to see for yourself what you’ve done because clearly, you still don’t get it. Now come on or we’ll leave you in the lobby.”

He gets out of the car, slams the door, and walks far quicker than he normally does to the building. Harry can keep up with him fine, something he can tell annoys Louis, but whatever. They get buzzed up to their apartment and while Harry trails behind Louis, anxiety slashes through every one of his nerves. What was he thinking? He’s so nervous that he has to stop himself from reaching out to Louis for comfort; he’ll find none there, so there’s no point in searching. 

“Be good,” Louis whispers to him when they reach the door, looking like he might beg. “Please.”

Harry just nods, too scared to say anything. They’re going to be mad when they see him. There’s no way around it and no way to deny that. So he hunches in on himself, wrapping his arms around him and shrinking behind Louis with a pounding heart and a queasy stomach. He knows that they hate him, but seeing it will hurt. A lot. 

Louis knocks on the door, looking a lot like Harry does right about now, and when Niall swings the door open, both of their eyes shoot up to his, guilty and wide. Niall looks surprised, and then a little irritated. He glances at Louis, giving him this unreadable expression before silently stepping to the side and motioning for them to come in. 

“Hi,” Louis says, a little awkwardly. 

Niall nods slowly. “Hi.” His eyes flick over to Harry, and they’re cold and angry, something they never used to be with Harry. 

“Hi,” Harry echoes, hoping that it’s appropriate, and Niall rolls his eyes at him and shuts the door. 

“Was supposed to be a fun night, Tommo,” he mumbles, shaking his head, and Louis sighs. 

“It still can be.”

“Watching Zayn kill Harry isn’t my definition of fun.”

He doesn’t say anything after that, just walks to the living room with Louis following closely behind, and Harry almost can’t convince himself to move. He stands there, terrified, for a few seconds before realizing that showing up after Louis and Niall have already sat down would be even worse. He follows after them, and after turning out of the kitchen, he’s in plain sight for them all to see, and it’s hard to tell what hurts more. Liam’s angered expression that he can’t hide very well or the way Zayn glances at him, then at Louis, and doesn’t seem to care at all. 

If Zayn isn’t angry, that means he doesn’t care about Harry at all. At _all._ And that’s about the most terrifying thing Harry has ever thought. 

There’s an awkward tension, and Louis’ the one to break it. 

“We’re just watching a movie,” he says. “We can do that without any drama, can’t we?” 

It would almost feel like Louis was trying to protect him if it wasn’t for the way he turns to glare at him, a silent threat. 

“Of course,” says Zayn, and Harry jolts at the sound of his voice, actually flinches back, because God, he misses him. He misses him and he’s right in front of him, and Harry ruined things so badly that that isn’t enough. “Why would there be drama, hmm?”

“Yeah,” Niall mumbles, sitting down between Liam and Zayn. Louis sits beside Liam and Harry sits next to him, and he’s glad he’s at the end of the couch so he has more room to try and move away from all of them. 

He shouldn’t have come. This is going to be torture. 

That sentiment is especially obvious when, after about ten minutes and while Niall’s getting the movie up, Liam stands and asks if anybody wants a beer. They all say yes, and Harry says nothing. There’s a brief pause, and then, quietly, “Harry?” Liam asks, motioning to him. Harry can’t look at him. 

“No, thanks. I’m okay.”

There’s a flash of relief on Liam’s face, maybe a bit of respect for that answer, too, but out of the corner of his eye, Harry can see Zayn roll his eyes. Harry has to bite his tongue to avoid spitting out an apology. 

The five of them, finally together again, watch the movie in an uncomfortable, suffocating silence. Only twice does someone speak; once when Liam asked what was going on in the movie, and another when Niall called one of the characters hot. Harry has sucked the life out of their night and for _what?_ He came here to talk to Zayn, not to ruin everyone’s night for no reason. 

That’s why when, fifteen minutes before the movie is over and Zayn gets up and heads down the hallway towards the kitchen, Harry stands up, too. Immediately, Louis grabs his wrist. 

“Leave it,” he begs, and Harry pulls his arm away. 

“You don’t have a right to do this,” Niall says, shaking his head at him. “You don’t get to hurt him anymore.”

Harry frowns at both of them. “I just want to talk to him. Since when is that a crime?”

“You don’t know _how_ to talk to people anymore,” Louis mumbles, and he sounds defeated so Harry decides to just leave. If anyone of that much of a problem with it, then they can come stop him. He walks down the hallway and turns into the kitchen, and Zayn’s leaning against the counter, one hand holding a beer and the other texting. 

Harry misses him so much. 

Zayn looks up from his phone at Harry for only a second before looking back down. He seems so casual about it, so relaxed. And Harry tries to mimic it as he walks to the fridge and grabs a beer for himself. He cracks it open, takes a sip, and leans against the fridge after it’s shut. 

“You don’t want to watch the end of the movie?” Harry asks, voice hoarse. Besides that, he manages to avoid sounding as nervous as he feels. He licks his lips nervously before taking another sip of beer, this one longer than the first. It relaxes him slightly. 

“You’re in here, too,” Zayn answers. There’s an edge to his voice, finally a bit of anger bleeding into his demeanor. 

“Because I wanted a beer,” Harry says. “And. . . and because I wanted to talk to you.”

Harry wonders if the other three are talking about Zayn and Harry right now, or if they’re holding their breaths silently, trying to watch the movie in peace. 

Zayn stands up straighter, leaning his hands against the counter. “I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t even know why you came.”

“I wanted to see you.”

“I don’t care,” Zayn says, sighing softly. He shrugs. “I don’t know what you want me to say, Harry. I don’t want to talk to you.”

Stressed, Harry takes a few long gulps of the beer, and Zayn scoffs. 

“I see you’re still dependent on alcohol.”

Harry narrows his eyes at him, not liking that at all. “I haven’t had alcohol in probably a month, thanks.”

“Because you haven’t talked to anybody in a month,” Zayn says matter-of-factly. Like he’s explaining something to a child. “And you can’t deal with people sober, so you drink to take the edge off, which means you’re dependent on it.”

Harry shakes his head and wipes a hand over his mouth before crossing his arms. “What do you want me to do?” he asks roughly. “Tell me and I’ll do it.”

“Nothing.”

“Zayn,” Harry nearly spits. He’s getting worked up, he can feel it, and he doesn’t know how to stop it. “Tell me what I can do to fix it and I’ll fix it. It’s not that hard.” He’s met with silence, and it kicks up panic in his heart. He turns to look at Zayn, and Zayn is already looking back at him, face unreadable. “What can I do to make you forgive me?”

“Nothing,” Zayn repeats, firmer this time. 

Harry groans quietly, already so sick of this. 

“Just fucking _tell_ me,” he says, begging. “Tell me. I don’t want to play these games, just tell me and I can fix it.” Again, Zayn doesn’t say anything. Harry narrows his eyes at him in disbelief. “I was your best friend for _years._ ”

“And then you weren’t anymore. What’s your point?”’

“You’re being a jerk.”

“Takes one to know one,” Zayn says hotly, and really, Harry sort of just explodes. 

“I am _trying_ ,” he shouts, anger and regret making his belly hot. “I know I was a dick, I know that I still am, but how the hell do you think I can make any of it better if you don’t even let me _try?_ I’m _trying_ , I’m trying with and I’m trying with Louis and -- and all it seems to do is piss you off more, so what do you _want_ from me? I know I have to earn your forgiveness, so let me try and earn it. _Please_.”

Zayn doesn’t even look fazed. He still knows how to get under Harry’s skin, and he’s doing a pretty fucking good job of it. “It’s not that I don’t want to forgive you, it’s that I can’t. I’m over it.”

“What does that even fucking mean?”

“I don’t _care_ anymore,” Zayn snaps. “I don’t care about what happened, and I don’t care about you. I’m _over_ it, Harry. I got the fuck over it. So should you.”

Harry stares at him, hurt running throughout his chest. “You can’t just not forgive me,” he says hoarsely. “You can’t -- Zayn. Come on.”

“I would have forgiven you if you had tried to fix it afterwards. If you had apologized sooner. But you didn’t. So no, I don’t forgive you. And I don’t have to.”

“That’s stupid,” Harry spits, stepping away from the fridge. “That’s -- that’s childish, that’s what it is.”

Zayn looks him right in the eye, lifting his chin a little. “Coming from the person who makes his boyfriend cry on a daily basis, that’s funny.”

“Louis doesn’t fucking cry. He never fucking cries, because he hates me, too. He’s a shit boyfriend, too. I know I’m not fucking perfect, but you lot are far from it either.”

Zayn shrugs like he really doesn’t care. “Okay,” he says. “I’m going to miss the end.” He tries to walk past Harry but -- no. _No_ , what the _fuck_ , he can’t just _leave_. Harry’s trying, he’s trying so hard, this isn’t _fair_. He grabs Zayn’s arm, admittedly harder than he meant to, and Zayn immediately pushes him away, purposely hard, and slams him against the fridge. With a firm hand on his chest, he points a finger in his face. 

“Do not touch me,” he seethes. “Don’t touch me, and don’t talk to me, and don’t come back to my home again, you hear me? Nobody fucking wants you here.”

When he pulls away, Harry’s chest is heaving and there are tears in his eyes, and Louis’ standing at the doorway with his arms crossed, looking tired and ashamed. 

“We’re leaving,” he says, and Harry throws his hands up, feeling defeated. 

“ _Louis_ ,” he tries, voice wrecked, and Louis shakes his head. 

“I don’t care.”

Harry watches him put his shoes on, stubbornly thinking that Louis can’t make him go, but once Louis leaves the flat and shuts the door behind him, he realizes that Louis might very well leave him here. Cursing quietly, he puts the beer down on the counter, grabs his shoes, and follows after Louis. He’s glad he did, too, because Louis wastes no time in starting the car and backing out of the parking lot. Harry doesn’t even have his seatbelt on. He probably would have left Harry there to figure out a way back home. 

As they sit in the car in complete and nauseating silence, Harry comes to terms with the fact that he’s the one who is supposed to apologize here. But he doesn’t want to, and quite frankly, he doesn’t think he did anything all that bad. All he tried to do is talk with Zayn; _Zayn_ is the one who acted like a child. First, anyway. Harry doesn’t feel like apologizing for Zayn getting mad at him for not doing things on his timeline. 

And maybe that line of thinking would have soothed his guilt before, but now. . . now is different. Now is the time to fix things. That was the whole fucking point of tonight. He has to figure out how to live a life, and he has to restore a life worth living, and that starts with Louis. He’d rather have Louis back and lose everyone else than any other alternative scenario. 

“I’m sorry, okay?” Harry says, and yes, there’s an edge to his voice, but he doesn’t think that should matter all that much when he managed to get the words out. 

“Stop talking,” Louis tells him tonelessly. He looks so tired. Exhausted and bored, like he’s so over this. Harry knows they’re so close to reaching a breaking point, and he has no idea what or when that will be. 

“Zayn started it, okay, and -- ”

“Shut the fuck up,” Louis tells him, shaking his head. “I don’t care what you have to say. First of all, I told you not to fucking speak to him. And second of all, Zayn is my best friend. I like him a whole lot fucking more than I like you, so I will take his side no matter what.”

Harry makes a hurt sound that he tries to cover with a scoff. “Maybe you should just date Zayn then.”

It’s like he can’t help but beg Louis to break up with him or something. 

“Please,” Louis says with a short laugh. “I learned the hard way not to fall for the charming, nice, smart ones. The next boyfriend I have is going to be, like, a fucking -- a fucking politician or something. Someone who is upfront and open about being a jackass to begin with.”

“You’re not very kind either, Louis. Just fucking listen to yourself.”

“No,” Louis shouts, glaring at him. “No. This is me trying not to lose my fucking mind by being around you. This is me being defensive and calloused so I can try not to fucking choke on all the horrible shit you say to me. Trying to be passive didn’t fucking work.”

Harry has a thousand different things on his tongue that he wants to say to that, all equally mean and awful and shameful. It takes a lot of power to get himself to shut up, and as he’s trying to find the words to replace the mean stuff with an apology, maybe, a better one, Louis laughs again, this short and tired sound. 

“I still don’t get it, you know,” he says. “I don’t get how you went from being the type of boyfriend who -- who tracked me down on campus every day to bring me a coffee and helped me study for my tests and called my sisters on the weekend and -- Harry, God, you used to be so nice, so fucking nice, and now you’re. . . Now you’re this. I don’t get it. I don’t get what happened.”

Harry’s humiliated by the tears burning his eyes. He doesn’t know what happened, either. 

“Because I don’t believe it was all a ploy,” Louis continues, and his voice has gone tighter now, like he’s about to cry or something equally as awful. “I think -- I can’t believe that you were always awful and hid it just so you could, like, trap me or something. I don’t think it was that, and I don’t think you’re cheating on me anymore because you never fucking leave the flat, so what -- can you just tell me? Please? What happened? Where did we go wrong?”

Harry could tell him. Right now, he could just tell him. About the suicide attempt, and if not that, just that he’s being feeling terrible for months now. That he’s cracking in the mental department or something. But that’s so scary, that’s _so_ _scary_ , and he can’t tell that to Louis when he’s mad. He can’t do that. 

“I’m just stressed,” he whispers, and Louis taps his hand against the steering, too light to be a slap but close to it. 

“Nope, I don’t believe that, either. Because you’re one of those stupid fucking people who like school and do well under pressure and practically get off on deadlines. That’s why you’re a fucking law student, Harry. So just tell me the truth. Did you -- was there somebody else? Was -- is there something wrong with your family, or are you -- I mean, are you addicted to something? I thought you were addicted to, like, pills for the longest time, but I’ve gone through your phone enough to rule that one out, and -- ”

“Jesus, Louis,” Harry mumbles, closing his eyes. He’s not even mad, not really. He would be mad if there was anything on his phone that was by any means personal, but there isn’t. Not anymore. He can’t remember the last time he texted or called someone. And any anger that he does feel is stamped out by the fact that Louis thinks Harry’s cheating on him or addicted to drugs or something equally as awful. 

“I thought you were sleeping with one of your professors or something, but the only class you go to is health law, and she’s a chick, so unless you’ve magically been turned on to chicks, I don’t think that it’s. Or maybe it is that, maybe you realized you aren’t into men and you’re dealing with that, or maybe -- I don’t know. I don’t know. You’re at the right age for a serious mental illness to rear its ugly head, but I -- ”

“Can you stop it?” Harry snaps, not liking how close to the truth that is. 

“No, I can’t. Because this is what goes through my head every single second of every day, and I’m going to lose my mind. I don’t know what could have changed you so drastically.”

Harry sets his head back against the headrest and closes his eyes. “I don’t know either. I don’t -- nothing, I guess. Nothing happened.”

Louis huffs, shrugging. “Keep lying, that’s fine. I don’t care anymore. I don’t. . . God. Whatever. I said stop talking, anyway.”

But no, because somewhere along that list that is apparently constantly running through Louis’ mind, there must be the idea that Louis caused this. Maybe he thinks he’s not good enough or something, and that’s -- Harry doesn’t want to destroy Louis. And judging by how worn out Louis looks, he’s already well on his way of doing that. 

So, he takes a deep breath, wipes his eyes, and says, “I’m going to call my mum tomorrow. To. . . talk. To figure out some stuff. I don’t know.” He sort of just made that up on the spot to give Louis some peace of mind, but he knows that fixing his bond with his mother is part of the agenda, too. 

Louis sighs quietly. “Okay,” he mumbles, and clearly that’s not enough. He doesn’t care. But Harry’s too scared to promise anything else, so he doesn’t. 

-

He doesn’t call his mum the next day, and Louis doesn’t ask about it, so it’s not a big deal. 

-

Two days after the failed attempt at talking to Zayn, Harry wakes up early in the morning with an idea in his head and fire in his veins. He sits up, not even feeling tired, and he glances at Louis who’s asleep beside him in bed. He’s facing Harry, outstretched on his side of the bed, and he’s still wearing his glasses and a textbook has been shoved off his lap and into the center of the bed. Carefully, Harry takes the textbook and slides Louis’ glasses off, sets them on the dresser, and heads to the closest. He throws on a coat long enough that it will hide the hole in the butt of his pajama pants, zips it up all the way, slides on a pair of boots, and grabs his keys. 

Fixing things with Louis isn’t working, and he’s pretty sure he has no chance at earning Zayn’s forgiveness. Something needs to give here, and maybe that something -- or someone -- could be Nick. 

Once he drives to campus, he has to wait forty minutes in the parking lot for Nick’s class to end. He doesn’t even contemplate going in halfway and staying for half the lecture to actually learn something, because for some reason, the panic he feels towards his failing education has been put on the backburner of his brain. 

With Nick, he has no idea how it’s going to go. They were close, but not as close as Harry and Zayn or Harry and Louis, and that could either help him or hurt him here. He has no idea, and he isn’t going to figure it out until he gets out of the car and talks to him. 

There’s no point in denying that he isn’t practically pissing himself when he walks towards the direction of the lecture room, down far too many hallways that give him time to convince himself to abort the mission. His heart is racing and his palms are clammy by the time he gets to the right classroom. He stands there, in front of the doorway, peering in from the hallway. For only a moment does he get to watch Nick; he’s at his desk, nodding his head back and forth like he has a song stuck in it, as he stares down at some papers. And before Harry can gain the courage to go inside, he’s forced to reveal himself when a student comes walking out quickly, nearly bumping into him, and they both stutter out apologies. He gets out of the way by going around her and into the classroom, and when he turns around, feeling flustered, Nick’s staring at him, looking half-amused, half-annoyed. 

Right. He can work with that. 

“Mr. Styles,” he says, leaning back against his chair. “Did you have a question about the lecture?”

Harry stares at him and wraps his arms around his middle, his fingers dragging over the rough fabric of his coat. “Nick,” is all he says. 

“Oh, wait, sorry. You weren’t here for the lecture. You’re never here. So, I guess I don’t understand what you’re doing here.”

“I’m here to talk to you,” he says quietly, coming closer, and he watches Nick nod as he opens his laptop. 

“Sure, let me just get your grades up and then we can talk about them.”

Harry sighs softly. “Not about my grades, Nick. Not about school.”

Nick glances at him with a tired look. After these past two weeks or so, Harry has to come to realize how tiring of a person he is. “Then I don’t know why you’re here,” Nick says, “because I don’t know how I can help you with anything else.”

And no, Harry _needs_ Nick to forgive him. Leaving here feeling alone isn’t an option for him. He needs _somebody_ to forgive him. If the wounds he made with Zayn and Nick are too deep, there isn’t even the smallest chance that he can mend his relationship with Louis, is there? Feeling pathetic, he pulls out the seat in front of Nick’s desk and sits with a heavy sigh. He doesn’t look at Nick. Can’t, more like. 

“Look,” Nick says, matching his sigh. “I’ve been doing this for a little while now, and I can tell you that you are not the first student I’ve seen fall off track like this. You’re. . . I don’t know, but I can tell you that it isn’t too late. To fix your grades, I mean.”

“I didn’t come here to talk about my grades, I already told you that. I just -- Nick.” He looks up at him with watery eyes, because still, he can’t help but feel like he’s about to cry all the time. “I miss you.”

Nick gives him a small smile. “I miss you, too, mate.”

And that feels fucking incredible. Euphoric, even. Someone finally gave him some indication that he can gather up the pieces and put his life back together. Harry smiles, relieved, and then he cries out of relief, too. It’s embarrassing, probably, but he’s far too drained to care. Harry was going to kill himself, and as of right now, Nick is the only thing to show that he shouldn’t have. 

“Oh, Jesus, okay,” Nick mumbles, standing up. “Didn’t expect that. Hold on, just -- I’ll just go shut the door, alright, and we can talk about this.” He slides his hand across Harry’s shoulders as he walks by to go shut the door, and it makes Harry cry harder. He hears Nick tell someone to just email him, and Harry feels so bad because that was probably a student who actually came to this class to learn, and here Harry is, crying on his desk like a loser. 

Quickly, he wipes his eyes and his nose and clears his throat. By the time Nick comes back to his desk and awkwardly pushes the box of tissues towards him, there aren’t tears running down Harry’s cheeks; the choke in his throat and the heat behind his wet eyes don’t count. 

“Talk to me, mate,” Nick says, and Harry shrugs, glancing down at his hands. 

“I don’t know what to say.”

“I do,” Nick says, and his tone is so soft. So delicate. “Like I’ve told you: I have been doing this for a while. Shit, I’ve been in the exact program as you only a few years ago. I know how stressful this is. I know that some people struggle more than others. And Harry, I promise you, I can help you figure your school shit out, but it’s not going to stick if you don’t figure out the things that caused this to begin with.” He goes quiet for a second, and when Harry picks his head up, Nick’s making a face. “What I’m trying to say is that the school offers a free counseling service and I think you should take advantage of it.”

That makes Harry feel. . . irritated, first. Then defensive. And then tired. Just really, really tired. And a little appreciative, too, because Harry can’t believe it’s a mystery that he’s not doing well mentally and Nick’s the only one to acknowledge it in a proper way so far. 

“I’m not here to talk about that,” he says, voice a little choked, “but thank you. Seriously.”

“I’ll email you the details. We don’t have to talk about it.”

That sounds doable.

“Okay. Thank you.” 

“So,” Nick says, taking a deep breath. “Your grades.”

“No,” Harry says, shaking his head. “No, I want to talk about us. About our friendship. Because Zayn hates me and Louis hates me and I don’t want you to hate me, too, not anymore, and I don’t -- ”

“I’m not going to punish you for dealing with some things,” Nick says, uncharacteristically serious. “I left you alone because you hurt me, yes, and I think you acted like an ungrateful little dick all of the time, but you’re here. You’re sitting here in front of me, and you’ve apologized already, and I’m not going to make you kill yourself in trying to show me that you’re a changed man, or something. I believe you.”

Harry feels so validated by that that his brain completely skips over Nick’s hyperbole about him killing himself. “Louis and Zayn won’t even hear me out,” he says. “You -- you’re being nice to me. You’re the only one being nice anymore.”

“Because you broke both of their hearts, H,” Nick says, smiling sadly at him. “I put a no-heartbreak stipulation on our friendship the minute you told me you weren’t single and I couldn’t shag you. You didn’t break my heart because I didn’t let you, but they weren’t so lucky.”

Harry doesn’t know what to say to that, back to feeling stupid, and Nick shakes his head. “Forget about this. Your grades, yeah? We can figure this out, Harry.”

“I don’t know if we can. I’m doing awful in all my courses.”

“Professor Deakin will grant you the opportunity to complete any missing work for this work with only a ten percent deduction to your assignments if I talk to him,” Nick says. “Maybe fifteen percent if he’s in a bad mood, but that’s better than a zero.”

A small bubble of hope floats in Harry’s stomach. 

“Okay,” he says slowly. 

Nick types some things on the computer and nods to himself before saying, “And your health law class is mostly attendance and tests, and you’ve taken all your exams and come to most classes. You have a C, which isn’t great, but if you study for the next tests and the final, you’ll be able to pull it up.”

“I don’t have any notes, though.”

“I was a law student,” Nick reminds. “A very good one, in fact. I can give you mine.”

Harry leans back against the chair, feeling like he might actually be able to do this. 

-

Harry’s at Nick’s office for three hours, and they figure out a plan.

First of all, Harry is going to have to drop out of his copyright class because he has no hope in saving that grade. Only one of five classes getting the chop isn’t all that bad, considering the circumstances. Nick gives him all the assignments and readings for property law that Harry can get a head start on (and promises him that if he tries as hard as he can and still can’t meet the deadlines Professor Deakin will set for him whenever Nick talks to him, then Nick will help him with the answers, but not a minute before). Nick gives him the notes for health law, immigration law, and law and literature, and says that he can help him get in good graces with the immigration law professor since they’re friends. 

“I’ll get Professor Deakin to write a letter of recommendation to your other classes so they will let you have an extension with the work you’ve missed. They’ll probably do it, either because they’re feeling generous or find it laughable that you think you can catch up this late in the semester.” He gives Harry a hard look, then. “You will catch up. I’ll make sure you have every opportunity to.”

Harry cries some more and Nick hugs him and answers Harry’s question of why he’s doing all this for him with a simple, “Because you’re a kid good and I love you, mate. We’ll figure this out.”

Harry will try his best to get on track with all of his courses, and if he can’t manage a B- in each course by the end of the semester, then he’ll drop the class. It’s kind of important that lawyers had good grades in universities, so there’s a lot of pressure riding on this and he’ll want to die as he drowns in coursework for the next month (God, he only has a fucking month), but with someone finally in his corner again, he feels capable and worthy for the first time in months. 

-

When he returns home with a heavy, stuffed bag of Nick’s on his shoulder, Louis isn’t home. Harry wanted him to be, he wanted to be able to come home and tell him that he’s finally doing something right for once. Louis is usually home at this time of day, and Harry has no idea where he is because he hadn’t bothered to text him, but that’s -- it’s fine. It’s not like Harry let Louis know where he was going this morning, either. 

It’s probably for the best, Louis not being home. Harry can’t have any distractions right now, not when there’s a backpack full of assignments he has to do that’s weighing on his shoulder so heavy that it hurts. And that’s only for one class; Harry has to get started on this _now_. 

By the time Louis gets home, Harry is seconds away from bursting into tears. He’s standing near the kitchen table, which has been completely devoured by textbooks and papers and notebooks. In the last hour and a half, all Harry has managed to get done is the list of the assignments that he organized. If it’s taken him that long to do that, then he doesn’t have a chance to finish all of this. He’s screwed, the damage is done. There’s no coming back from this. Any of this. 

Louis stares at him, at the mess before him, as he walks through the door and sets his things down. He kicks off his shoes and puts his coffee on the kitchen counter before grabbing his phone and checking it. There must be nothing because he puts it away and looks at Harry, already looking tired of him. 

“What’s all this, then?” he asks, sighing. “Did the university finally threaten to kick you out or something? I’m surprised it's taken this long.”

A wounded sound rips its way from Harry’s throat and he falls ungracefully into the chair. “Don’t,” he begs, staring down at the never-ending to do this before him. “I can’t -- please don’t be mean to me right now.”

There’s a pause, and then, softer, Louis asks, “What are you doing, Harry?”

“I went to see Nick today,” Harry answers after a minute, once he’s sure his voice won’t waver when he speaks. It doesn’t. “He -- he’s going to help me get back on track. And there’s just a lot of stuff I have to do, Louis, and I don’t,” he lets out a broken laugh. “It’s just a lot.”

“Oh. Well, um. I’m surprised this is all there is, to be honest. You _are_ a law student.”

Harry glances at him, exhaustion and tears weighing down his eyelids. “This is just for my property law class. And there are a few assignments Nick didn’t have copies for.”

Louis flinches and tries to smooth it over quickly, probably trying to avoid discouraging Harry. He nods and bites down on his lip. “Alright, then,” he says quietly. “I’ll. . . leave you to it, I guess.” He grabs his coffee and starts to walk before he sighs and turns to look at Harry. “I’m,” he sighs. “I’m proud of you, I guess. For doing this.”

And all Harry can do is nod because he can barely hold back the tears anymore. From the relief of Nick’s forgiveness and the stress of the coursework and now Louis being kind to him -- Harry’s about as emotionally frail as he’s ever felt before. 

“Here,” Louis says, and when Harry looks up, Louis’ setting the coffee on the opposite side of the table as Harry. “There’s, like, four shots of espresso in there. You look like you need it more than I do.”

God, Harry needs to cry. 

“Thank you,” he says, and his voice is wrecked and he’s too tired to care. Louis knows he’s a mess better than anybody else; is there even a point in trying to hide it? He reaches forward to grab the coffee, and his hand shakes, and Louis leaves the room without another word. Harry’s about to completely break apart, but he pushes through the tears by taking a long sip from the coffee, the burn of it breaking apart the tears collecting in his throat. 

He takes a deep breath, wipes his nose, and grabs for the first assignment. He’ll start off with the stuff that will take the least amount of time to complete so the to do list looks less intimidating. As he’s pulling up a fresh Word document, Louis comes back into the main area in pajamas and with his laptop in his hand. Harry glances back down, trying to focus, but when Louis sits next to him at the table, he freezes. 

They’re treading on new territory here. They don’t do homework together at the table anymore, and they don’t ever sit so close, and Louis doesn’t ever look at him like he is right now. 

“Give me something to do,” he says, and Harry feels lightheaded for a moment. He stares at him, and Louis shrugs, looking uncertain. “I’m not a law student, but I’m sure there’s something I can do for you. Just tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”

Harry closes his eyes tightly, the tears coming right back to get him in full force. He sniffles sharply, trying to avoid embarrassing himself further, and then nods. “Yeah,” he whispers shakily. He reaches towards the pile he made for readings he has to do and hands the top one to Louis. “It’s, um. I just need a case outline on that. I can -- um. I can forward you an old outline of mine that you can just copy. It’s not -- it’s not that hard, it’s just time consuming.” And God, he feels dizzy and nauseous and kind of like he could faint, so he takes another sip of the coffee to try and calm himself down. “And, um. Thank you. Seriously. You don’t -- you don’t have to, if you don’t want to. I won’t blame you.”

“Just send me that outline,” Louis tells him gently, and Harry nods. As he does that, Louis flips through the case reading, and it’s incredibly evident by his face that he doesn’t want to do this, but he’s doing it anyway. For Harry, for some reason. God, Harry’s awful and Louis just isn’t, and that’s --

“I sent it.”

“Okay,” Louis says, opening his laptop. He hesitates before looking at Harry, and he looks sympathetic and loving and not at all like Harry ruined them beyond belief. “Go shower or something. Take a break. A small one, but -- you look like a wreck. You can’t be productive like that.”

Logically, Harry knows that Louis is right. It’s a little hard to believe -- all the papers on his desk are proof that he can’t take a break -- but he’s mentally exhausted and will probably explode at the smallest inconvenience, so yes, he should take a break. A small one. It’ll be harmless. 

“Thank you,” Harry says, standing up. “I don’t -- thank you. Seriously. Thank you.”

“It’s fine, Harry. Go and take that shower, okay?”

Harry nods, shuffling on his feet for a few seconds before leaving. 

-

After his shower, Louis and Harry spend four hours straight at the table working on assignments. Between the two of them, they’re getting more things done than Harry thought possible. And yes, he’ll have to go through Louis’ work just to make sure it's sensible from a law student’s perspective, but that’s okay. The work he’s giving Louis requires minimal background knowledge, anyway. 

They’re entering their fifth hour when Louis looks at him briefly. He looks back down at his laptop before glancing at Harry again, and he says, “Are you shaking because of that coffee or because you haven’t eaten all day again?”

It dawns on Harry, then, that Louis’ right: Harry hasn’t had anything to eat today aside from a banana he grabbed off the counter after he came back home. It’s -- he just didn’t think about it. He’s been so stressed with all this school work that he hasn’t thought about anything else. 

“Oh,” Harry mumbles, standing up. His back aches and so do his shoulders, and he stretches out before heading to the fridge. He pulls out the leftover pizza from a few days ago and, as he reheats that, Louis sighs. 

“You do that sometimes. Why?”

Harry glances at him, confused. They don’t do this, first of all, and second of all, Harry doesn’t know what he’s talking about. “Do what?”

“Barely eat all day. Unless you’re going out and getting take out and eating it there, you don’t eat a lot some days. I pay attention to that sort of stuff, you know. That’s why I keep the fridge stocked with food you like, and you still don’t eat any of it some days.”

Harry frowns, crossing his arms over his chest. That’s -- God, Louis still has been looking after him, and Harry didn’t even realize it. That’s so shit. _Harry’s_ shit. And he honestly doesn’t know what Louis’ talking about. “Not really. I eat. I don’t -- I haven’t noticed it, I mean. I guess.” He feels so, so awkward talking to Louis, and it breaks his heart. 

“I have. It’s. . . have you noticed that you’ve lost some weight?”

Harry shakes his head. “I don’t think so.”

“That’s good then, I guess. I don’t know.”

The microwave goes off, and Harry turns to grab his food. He tries to think, but it’s -- of course he doesn’t remember everything he ate the last few days. That’s not information his brain cares to store. But he does remember barely leaving his room yesterday, only twice to use the bathroom before Louis got home, so what if -- ugh, whatever. Harry doesn’t have the time to worry about this. 

“Low appetite, I guess,” he mumbles as he comes back to the table with his food. 

“Hunger makes people snappy, you know,” Louis says, pointedly not looking at Harry, and guilt tears through Harry’s stomach. “So does disrupted sleep. You don’t ever stop tossing and turning during the night.”

Harry doesn’t know what to say. He hasn’t been paying much attention to that sort of stuff, and he hadn’t realized Louis was. (And if Louis apparently knows Harry has a low appetite and a problem with sleeping through the night along with being irritated and upset all the time, why has he never offered to help? Or asked Harry if he was okay? But then Harry remembers how mean he could get, how mean he can still get, and he knows why Louis never bothered.)

“I nap during the day,” he says, which isn’t a lie. “Can we not talk about this, please?”

“If you answer me one question,” Louis says, and now he’s suddenly back to sounding irritated and he’s staring at Harry expectantly. Harry nods slowly, a little scared. “Have you ever cheated on me?”

Thank God it’s an easy question.

“No,” Harry says. It’s hard keeping eye contact, but he forces himself to anyway. “Never. I haven’t ever thought about it, either.”

“You swear? Even if -- a kiss, a hook up, a date. Nothing?”

“Nothing, I promise. I don’t -- ” he looks down at his computer, trying to pinpoint the exact time Louis got this insecure. There must’ve been signs that Harry missed, because Louis is the opposite of insecure. Or maybe he just used to be. “You said it yourself, you’ve gone through my phone. I don’t talk to anyone that isn’t you, and even that, well. You know how that goes.”

Louis looks a little surprised. “Nobody else?”

Harry shakes his head, feeling small and pathetic. 

“Harry,” Louis mumbles, sitting back in his chair. He looks mildly alarmed. “That’s not good for you. That’s not -- God. Haz.”

“You’re all I have left,” Harry whispers, and there are more tears that rush to his eyes. He’s getting used to that now. He wipes his eyes quickly and sniffles. “Well, I guess I have Nick now. If I don’t fuck that up again.”

“Call your bloody mother,” Louis says sternly. “Call your sister. Tomorrow, I’m serious, call one of them. Call both of them. You will go bloody insane if I’m the only one you’re talking to. And even more insane if you’re hanging around Nick again.”

“We should get back to work,” he says, because this is all too much. 

“Call them yourself or I’ll call them for you and shove the phone in your face,” Louis threatens, and then sighs. “Whatever you did, Harry, whatever you said to them -- they’ll get over it.”

“Like Zayn did?” Harry asks hotly, and Louis glares at him. 

“Don’t start with that again. Zayn isn’t your mother. Call Anne. Tell her you’re sorry and that you love her. You can’t expect people to know you still love them if you don’t tell them every once in a while.”

God, Harry can’t do this. Not right now. He should jump at the opportunity of having an open and honest conversation with Louis, but he just can’t stomach it right now. It’s too hard. 

‘I’ll start on this next reading,” Louis mumbles, reaching toward the never-ending stack of readings. “We do another hour or two and then we’re going to bed, okay?”

“There’s so much still.”

“And it’ll still be here tomorrow,” Louis tells him. It’s the truth, and there’s no way they can get this all done today, anyway. That’s unrealistic. So, Harry goes back to the essay he’s been trying to write for the last hour while eating a bite of pizza every few minutes, and Louis presses play on their music again. For the next hour, they work in silence, and then Louis argues with him until Harry grumpily goes to bed. 

Harry’s never wanted to cuddle Louis so badly, but he falls asleep before he becomes sad enough to act on it. 

-

Things don’t really improve with Louis the way Harry thought they would after that night. It’s. . . there’s a little more understanding between them, sure, and they aren’t at each other’s throat’s all the time, but they still don’t talk much. Not really. It’s been a week, Louis helps him with his coursework every night that he can, and Harry tries not to have a heart attack each time he picks up a stack of papers from one of his teachers, and that’s all that really changes. 

Yesterday morning, Harry was half-asleep on the couch with a textbook in his lap when Louis got home with two coffees. He gave one to Harry wordlessly before he went into the back room. Harry was reading through a section on landlord negligence when Louis came back into the living room and into the kitchen. 

After about a minute, he asked around a sigh, “What have you eaten today?”

Harry glanced at him, surprised, and then he felt himself start to redden when he realized he hadn’t eaten almost anything again. It was six p.m., he woke up at eight, and all he had was an apple. That’s not -- he doesn’t think about it. That doesn’t make it okay, and that’s not normal. 

Louis must have taken his silence as denial because he said, sounding irritated, “There’s no dishes, nothing in the fridge looks touched, and there’s nothing new in the trash.”

“I had an apple,” Harry mumbled, dragging his eyes away. The core was still wrapped in a napkin on the table next to his laptop. 

“Is that a -- ” Louis stopped, took a deep breath, and softened his tone. “Is that something we need to talk about? Because we can. I’m here for you. If there’s something serious you need to tell me, I will forget about everything going on between us and just listen. Don’t be afraid to tell me anything.”

“It’s not like that,” Harry told him, and he felt like a liar. Not because it wasn’t true, but because there was something that Harry had to tell him that _was_ like that, and he just didn’t mention it. Louis believed him when he said he just wasn’t hungry all that often, and he brought him a plate of pasta, and that was that. 

Now Harry knows that Louis will listen judgment-free if he were to tell him what almost happened, and it weighs on him heavily. 

-

For the two weeks remaining in November and the first week of December, Harry uses Nick as a distraction. They text constantly and, since Harry is doing his best at going to class now, whenever Harry’s on campus, he stops by Nick’s to see him. It’s -- the distance between them did them good, probably. Nick has no idea how awful Harry has gotten, so it’s easier to fake around him. It’s easier to talk to him and relax around him and go back to normal with him than it is with Louis. And the more and more coursework Harry gets completed, the more and more he’s willing to spend time with Nick.

He misses talking to people. He misses having connection to the outside world, as melodramatic as that sounds. Coming to lectures is difficult and he can’t really focus, but being there is enough for him to feel productive. To make him feel okay about himself. And Harry and Nick grab food a lot, and Harry’s pretty sure Louis was right about him not eating a ton because he recognizes how _good_ he feels once he has proper food in his stomach. 

He wouldn’t say his life is coming back together. Not for a second does he believe that. But chasing the one person that is offering him a way back and clinging to them is convincing him that, eventually, he can have his old life back. 

“Please,” Nick tells him one day after Harry says he’s not sure he can fix things with Louis. “Louis loves you like mad. That type of love doesn’t just go away so easy. If he’s here with you still, if he’s still helping you with your coursework, then it’s not too late.”

Harry hopes that’s true. Day and night, no matter what he’s doing, he’s hoping that he hasn’t lost Louis for good. That, if Harry keeps trying, no matter how tired he is, then he can find his way back to Louis. He has to. 

On the sixth of December, after spending most of the day at Nick’s flat and eating his food and abusing Nick’s inability to not flaunt his knowledge in order to finish an essay for his law and literature class, he gets home with two coffees and a bag of pastries. Even if things between Harry and Louis aren’t anywhere near where either of them wants them to be, that’s something that has changed, them getting each other coffees or take-out. It’s a starting point. 

Harry barely has his things set down before Louis is snapping, “So are you and Nick finally screwing or what?”

Calmly, Harry sets everything on the table, hangs his coat, and takes off his shoes. He doesn’t get to be mad at Louis for doubting his loyalty. “No. I’m not cheating on you, I never have, and I never will. Especially not with Nick.”

“So you really are just friends with him again?” Louis asks, still angry, and Harry slowly realizes that there’s a bigger issue here. “I think that’s worse.”

“What do you mean, Louis?”

Louis stands from the couch and crosses his arm over his chest. “You are hanging out with him nearly every day. You text him constantly.”

“And is that any different than how you are with the boys?” Harry asks, not angrily, just -- confused. He’s confused at what’s happening right now. 

“Yes,” Louis hisses. 

“I don’t understand.”

Louis looks impossibly angry for about a minute, and he scoffs in disbelief. “Of course you don’t.”

Harry frowns. He doesn’t want to fight. They haven’t fought in a while now; sure, they’ve snapped at each other here and there, but they haven’t had a proper fight recently. Harry doesn’t want to have one now, and certainly not over Nick. “If you could just tell me what it is,” he starts, and Louis shakes his head. 

“I shouldn’t have to explain to you why it’s beyond fucking insulting that you’re buddy-buddy with Nick again.”

“Did Nick do something wrong?” Harry asks, genuinely trying to understand what Louis’ getting at, and immediately, he can tell that it was the wrong thing to say. Maybe he really is just dumb, because Louis huffs out a long breath before leaving the room. Harry sits at the table, trying to figure out what exactly he did to piss Louis off so much. He thought. . . he thought Louis would be happy that Harry was socializing again. And thinking that makes him feel incredibly stupid now.

Louis comes back into the living room about an hour later, and Harry feels desperate to prevent this from festering. He doesn’t know how, though, because he doesn’t entirely understand what he did to upset Louis so much in the first place. Anything he can think to say right now, he knows Louis will only get angered by. 

“I did, like, three hour’s worth of your homework today,” Louis tells him as he roughly grabs the bag of pastries off the table. “I emailed them to you, but I wasn’t sure if you got them considering I didn’t get a thank you text or anything.”

“I am massively appreciative of you helping me,” Harry says, hoping he sounds genuine. “I literally would not be able to do this without you. And not just school, I’m. . . Thank you. I’m sorry if I haven’t said that enough, because I really am thankful. You don’t have to help me, I know that. And if you don’t want to anymore, I won’t be mad.”

Louis turns to him with a stare so cold that it scares Harry, a bit. After a heavy silence, he says, “I think this was easier when you were just a massive dick all the time.”

Harry can’t even respond to that before Louis retreats back into their room, the coffee Harry got him and a pastry in hand. Harry has no idea what that means for them, just that it isn’t very promising. 

-

“I guess I just don’t see the harm in asking,” Nick says, and Harry closes his eyes as he sets his forehead against his knee, his legs tucked up against his chest. That’s becoming a problem, Nick not understanding any of this. He understands Harry went through a rough time and became the world's biggest fuckhead. That’s about all anyone understands. Nobody gets that all that anger and turmoil was layered with the heaviest sadness he’s ever felt in his entire life, and that it’s still clinging to him. It’s hard talking to Nick about stuff when he doesn’t get it. 

Harry wants to call his mum to ask if he can come home for Christmas. It’s the tenth of December, and he’s already cutting it close time-wise, but he has to call and ask. Louis and Harry have switched where they spent Christmas the last few years; last year, they went to Doncaster, so this year, they’ll be heading to Holmes Chapel. If Anne wants Harry anywhere near her. 

“I haven’t talked to her since July,” Harry repeats. “She’s not going to want to talk to me.’

“And you’re not going to know that for sure unless you ask.” Nick scoots closer to him and sets a hand on Harry’s shoulder. He’d probably try to cuddle him if it wasn’t for Nick’s dog, Pig, splayed out between them, hogging over half the couch. “It might be scary, mate, but she’s your mum. What’s scary for her is not hearing from her son in months. Not knowing if he’s going to come home for Christmas. I seriously doubt she doesn’t want you there.”

Harry’s quiet for a moment before he exhales slowly. “Louis still talks to her. My sister, too. And. . . and I don’t know how much they know. If my mum knows I messed things up with Louis, too, she’s not going to be so quick to forgive me. She loves him.”

“And Louis loves you, and he wouldn’t be stupid enough to air out your problems to your mum.” Harry doesn’t believe that, but when Nick points out, “And from what you’ve been telling me, he seems awfully insecure and unsure if the problem is him. I doubt he’d tell Anne that your relationship was failing if he thinks it’s fault.”

“This is all so fucked up,” Harry groans, leaning back against the couch. Louis thinks this is his fault and so does his mum, probably, and his sister most likely hates him, and he really, really doesn’t want to spend Christmas in London but he’s not sure he’s brave enough to find out if he’s even invited back home. This is all too much, not to mention the fact that finals are next week and Harry has had barely any time to study for them as he’s been trying to finish all the assignments his teachers (thankfully) gave him an extension on. He’s almost all caught up, he can see the finish line, but if he fuck’s up his finals then all that effort was worth nothing. 

Nick promised to give him an unfair advantage on his property law exam, so at least he doesn’t have to worry about that one too much. 

“And you have the chance to un-fuck some of it by making one phone call,” Nick tells him. “It’s your mum. She raised you, saw your terrible twos and all that. She has seen you throw tantrums before, and she’s forgotten about it every single time. This will be like that, I think.”

“Maybe you’re right, I don’t know.”

Nick squeezes his shoulder. “Harry, darling, I don’t think I’ve been wrong a day in my life.”

-

Harry was going to wait to call his mum tomorrow on his way home from university, but when he gets home from Nick’s tonight, Louis isn’t home. There isn’t a point in dragging this out, so Harry changes into comfortable clothes, makes himself something to eat (because ever since Louis pointed it out, Harry can’t help but notice that he doesn’t really think about food all that much, so he doesn’t eat as much as he should unless he practically writes it into his schedule), sits on the couch, and takes a long, deep breath. 

It’s just his mum. There’s nothing scary about that. 

After he’s pressed call, he puts the phone to his ear and braces himself for any sort of possible scenario here. 

Anne answers on the fourth ring. “Harry?” she sounds shocked, a little worried. “Is everything okay, baby?”

“Yeah, Mum. Everything’s fine.” He hesitates, not wanting to sound stupid, before he says, “I just. . . just wanted to talk to you. Say hi.”

“Oh. Oh, well, um. How are you, darling? It’s been a while. Too long.”

“I know,” Harry says, pained by the hurt in his mum’s voice. “I’m -- God, Mum. I’m sorry. Really. I didn’t mean to blow you off, I just -- I don’t know. I feel terrible, though.”

Truth is, he stopped talking to his family in the hopes that it would help reduce their grief when he died. If they were mad at him for being a dick and ignoring them, maybe. . . maybe they wouldn’t care as much that he was dead. Maybe, in the best-case scenario, they’d even feel a little relieved. 

Harry pushes that into the back of his head. He tries as hard as he can not to think about that. 

“It’s okay, Harry.”

It doesn’t sound very okay. 

“At least you’re calling now,” she continues. She lets out an unconvincing laugh and says, “I’d be careful about calling your sister, though. You know how she can get.”

The laugh he lets out falls flat, too. Gemma might actually strangle him. There’s nothing funny about that, especially since he would deserve it. 

“How’s Louis, love?”

Anxiety rushes to his stomach and he swallows thickly. “He’s, uh. Yeah, he’s good. Busy, you know. . . He’s always busy.”

“Yeah, well. He’s working hard. A nurse and a lawyer; what a power couple you two are.” She laughs again, and it sounds more like it usually does. If only she knew that Harry is still not completely confident in saying he won’t fail all of his classes this semester or in his relationship. “How is school, then? And finals, those are coming up soon, aren’t they?”

“School’s fine, Mum. Finals are next week. But I’m,” he pauses, unsure if he should bring it up or if he should let her. But he’d much rather invite himself somewhere he’s most likely not wanted than lie to his mother about his academic performance, so he continues. “I was -- I mean, finals end next week. And. . . and after that, I have some time off, you know. Like usual. And. . . and since me and Lou went to Yorkshire last year, you know, we were talking, um. Just talking, we still haven’t made up our minds yet, but if, uh. We were thinking -- ”

“Sweetheart,” Anne interrupts, voice so gentle it almost makes Harry cry. “If you want to come here, then you are more than welcome. Always. You know that.”

A rush of relief floods through him so quickly that he feels the slightest bit faint. “Really? Are you sure?”

“Yes. Of course.”

“Thank you,” he whispers around the lump in his throat. “Really, Mum. Thanks.”

“Don’t be silly, baby. You’re always welcome home. You don’t have to thank me for that.”

But Harry does, and he recognizes that. Anne would have been well within her right to blow Harry off the same way he’s been doing to her for months, but she didn’t, and he’s so bloody relieved. Sort of excited, too, because Louis will hopefully be happy that he called his mum and finally has the Christmas plans sorted. 

It’s another win, another indicator that Harry made the right choice that afternoon in November. Two wins in a month and a half should feel defeating, but it doesn’t. It’s _something_ , and all he needs is a little something to hold onto. 

-

Harry’s writing the conclusion paragraph of the last essay he has to catch up on when Louis comes home. He no longer feels the inexplicable urge to flee or hide whenever Louis comes home; instead, he briefly smiles at him and quietly says hello before looking back at his screen. 

“I’m going out with the boys in, like, an hour,” Louis tells him as he passes by, walking towards the couch. “Just so you know.”

“Oh. Okay. That’s fine.” He shifts in his seat, feeling awkward and small. “I, um. I talked to my mum today.” He doesn’t turn to look at Louis, but he figures that this works. That it doesn’t matter how they talk so long as they’re talking and not yelling at each other. Baby steps, Nick keeps calling it.

“Oh. How was that, then?”

Harry exhales loudly. “Okay. I don’t -- yeah, fine. But I asked her about Christmas, and, like. She said we could come. You know, to Cheshire.”

He thinks the hardest part is over, and then Louis doesn’t respond right away. After a few seconds, Harry turns, confused, and Louis looks uncertain. 

“I was planning on going to Doncaster,” Louis says slowly. He’s looking Harry in the eye, but it doesn’t feel like he wants to. 

“Oh. But I -- we went to Doncaster last year, is all. I thought -- you know. I thought we’d alternate, like we do every year.”

“This year is a bit different, no?”

Louis sounds cold, accusatory, so Harry immediately tries to back away from that. “No, yeah. Okay. That’s -- yeah, that’s okay. Could I -- um. Could I come with you?”

It’s fucked that he even has to ask that, and it’s fucked that he’s so scared that the answer will be no, and it’s fucked that Louis doesn’t immediately tell him yes. They’ve had a rough go of things for the better half of the last year, sure, but -- it’s fucking Christmas. It’s Louis’ _birthday_. Spending that time apart isn’t an option, even if they aren’t steady right now. It’s not a fucking option. 

For Harry. 

“No,” Louis finally replies. His eyes dart away and he licks his lips before glancing back at Harry, and he doesn’t even have the decency to look guilty. 

“ _No?_ Seriously?”

Louis makes a face. “Are you really surprised?”

“What about your mum?” Harry tries, desperate. He’s devastated, completely fucking heartbroken, and he needs to change Louis’ mind. He has to. “What will she say if I’m not there?”

“I’m more scared of what she’d say if you _were_ there.”

Harry stands from the chair, chest heaving a little. That’s -- wow. Harry would never fucking shit-talk Louis to his mum. Anybody, for that matter. But Louis seemingly has no problem airing out Harry’s shortcomings to their friends and to his mum. “What have you told her, Louis?”

“The truth,” Louis says simply. 

“ _Why?_ ”

“Because I had no idea how to handle any of it, and I didn’t want to be alone,” Louis snaps, and Harry scoffs. 

“You weren’t alone,” Harry tells him, nearly shouting. “You maybe didn’t have me, but you weren’t alone, not for a minute. You don’t know what it’s really like to be alone. And you didn’t have to shit-talk me to your fucking mother.”

Louis shrugs, sinking back into the couch and grabbing the remote. As he flicks on the TV, he says, “Yeah, well, I did.”

Harry takes a step back, hurt blossoming in his chest. He can’t believe this. Not Louis talking crap about him to his mum -- Louis tells her everything and it’d be naive to think he wouldn’t tell her about this, too -- but Louis not wanting to spend Christmas with him is different. It hurts worse than anything ever has, and Louis doesn’t even look like he _cares_.

“Then if you told her the truth,” Harry says, “then I hope you mentioned how shitty of a boyfriend you have been, too.”

“Please,” Louis mumbles, rolling his eyes. Harry stares at him, beyond pained and a little shocked at how calloused Louis’ acting.

“You know, the first thing Nick did is ask me if I was okay,” he says, voice a little shaky, and he doesn’t even care. “He asked me if I was okay, and if I needed help, because that’s -- because he’s not a fucking idiot and realizes that someone just doesn’t go off the deep-end for no reason. Because he actually cares about me.” He sniffles quietly, eyes wet, and his pain gets so much worse when Louis glares at him. 

“Nick is a pushover,” he snaps. “Nick wants to get in your pants and has the minute he met you. Of course he welcomed you back with open arms and made you think this is all everyone else’s fault.”

“ _Nick’s_ the one who has been trying to get me to fix things with you every time I see him,” he corrects, shaking his head. “You know, I may be a fucking dick, and I may just be about the world’s biggest loser, but I least I don’t pretend like I have everything figured out. You think you know everything, but you don’t. You don’t have a clue about anything.”

Louis opens his mouth to speak, but Harry can’t and won’t hear anything else. “No,” he snaps, pointing a finger at Louis. “No. Don’t talk to me. You don’t get to do that.” His anger is lost in the tears in his voice, but maybe that’s okay. Louis knows how angry Harry is; he should know how hurt he is, too. 

As quickly as he can, which isn’t very quick considering his vision is blurry and his hands are shaking, he puts his laptop into his bag, shoves on his shoes, grabs a jacket and his keys and then leaves, Louis’ blank stare the last thing he sees before he shuts the door. 

Harry’s certain Nick is going to be annoyed that he invited himself back to his flat only after a few hours, but when he answers the door, he just laughs. 

“Was just about to turn on _Pretty Woman_ ,” he says, letting Harry in. Harry follows him to the couch and sits next to him, still sniffling quietly and absolutely freezing since he didn’t take the time to put his coat on. For a moment -- just a moment -- Harry thinks maybe he should get his anger out and his revenge by sleeping with Nick, right now. Sex will make him feel better, anyway. But, of fucking course, he wouldn’t do that to Louis. He’s pretty sure he literally couldn’t. He hates Louis, God, does he hate him, but he also loves him like mad. Even if he didn’t love Louis, he’d still respect him, and he’d never do that. 

“I wish I was a bad enough person to fuck you right now,” Harry mumbles, because even though he would never do it, he wants it to be known that he fucking thought about it. Fuck Louis, honestly. He’s still mad. He won’t stop being mad about this for a long time. 

“Okay, I’ll get the wine,” Nick says, standing up. “Sounds like you need it.”

-

Louis leaves for Doncaster on the twentieth of December, and the time spent before that is unbearable. Worse than it has ever been before, probably. Harry sleeps on the couch, and he doesn’t say a word to Louis most days, and Louis doesn’t say a word to him, either. Harry thought -- naively and stupidly, he thought Louis would realize how big of a fucking jerk he was being and invite him to Doncaster, and he didn’t. He fucking _didn’t_. 

“Tell your mum I said hi,” Louis mumbles on the morning he’s leaving. He’s straightening the beanie he has on his head, and Harry feels sick with anger once he realizes that it’s his hat. Louis probably doesn’t even realize it. It’s evidence that they’re still so closely intertwined.

Harry picks his head up to glare at him. He’s already in a particularly shit mood because he found out he didn’t do too hot on his immigration law exam about an hour ago. Not bad, but not good, either. It was the last grade he was waiting on, and he managed to pull all his grades up as much as he wanted to, and he should be fucking happy but Louis is leaving him for Christmas. 

“I’m not going home anymore,” he snaps, because really, how dumb is Louis if he expected him to?

Louis stares at him before sighing. “Okay. And I’m assuming you’re going to blame that on me, too?”

“Yes,” Harry hisses. “Yeah, I am. Because I can’t face them without you there with me. Because I promised my mum I’d come thinking I’d have you as a fucking protector like I always have, and you abandoned me.”

“Don’t be so melodramatic. You don’t need a protector, and I’m not abandoning you.”

“Yeah, well, I feel pretty abandoned, Louis.” And he doesn’t mean to sound so sad, but he’s thankful that he does when he can see the flash of guilt on Louis’ face. “Just go,” Harry says, sniffling. 

“Don’t drink too much,” Louis says, and then he does. He goes. He actually goes, leaving Harry alone for over a week here because apparently the alternative is worse. Louis would rather leave Harry sad and lonely than take him with, because Harry is just that goddamn embarrassing now. 

He manages to stay there, alone in the flat, for an hour until he has to leave and go to Nick’s. He’ll fucking kill himself if he stays home alone that long, he knows he will. For real this time, too. So, like he has been doing for the past month now, he goes to Nick and makes it his problem. 

When Nick opens his door, he looks sad. 

“I know you are staying here for the holidays because you need a break from people,” Harry says, sniffling pathetically. Nick said that teaching drove him bloody mad and he was sick of seeing people’s faces and that he wasn’t going to leave his flat the entire break, and now here Harry is, already breaking his bubble. “But can I be excluded from the people that you need a break from?”

“Of course,” Nick says softly, grabbing his wrist and tugging him in. 

“Louis hates me,” Harry blurts out as he sits at Nick’s table. Nick makes them tea, but all Harry really wants is about a whole bottle of scotch. “But you don’t hate me. You’re the only one who doesn’t hate me.”

Nick smiles. “I’m special. Always has been.”

“I hate me, too,” Harry says quietly, and Nick sighs. 

“Did you ever read that email I sent you about the psychological services the university provides?”

Harry shakes his head. “Of course I didn’t.”

“Haz.”

“What’s the point of getting better when there’s no one to get better for?” Harry asks, genuinely wanting to know. This would have been so much easier if he didn’t ruin things so much beforehand. Everything’s ruined, and it’s. . . he doesn’t even know if he would have stopped himself if he had known it was going to be like this, and that’s heartbreaking. 

“You have yourself.”

Harry snorts. “I literally just said I don’t like myself. That’s not helpful.”

“Well,” Nick starts quietly. “You have me. I’ll be your new best friend. And you have PIg.”

Harry turns to see Nick’s dog staring at them, and even though he feels like complete crap right now, it makes him smile. 

-

Harry leaves a voicemail for Louis on his birthday, and he’s so drunk he can barely speak properly. 

“I hope you’re having fun with your family,” he says through tears. He’s sat on Nick’s kitchen floor with Pig nestled into him, and he’s been crying for almost an hour now. It’s two in the afternoon, and Nick is helping his mate decorate at the last minute for a Christmas party at her house. Harry grabbed the whiskey as soon as the door clicked shut. “I hope you’re able to forget me when you’re with them. I hope. . . I don’t know. Go out. Find a guy you like and fuck him. I won’t be mad. I’d probably deserve it. Just -- just pretend like I don’t exist while you’re at home, because I know that’s what you wanted. You wanted to forget about me. Wanted to forget how much of a burden I apparently am on you. I know it. You showed me that, so I hope -- I hope you get what you’re looking for.”

He gets cut off before he’s finished, and as he sits there and tries to gain the strength to pour himself another glass, he winds up falling asleep. For how long, he isn't sure. All he knows is that Nick’s the one to wake him, looking awfully concerned. 

“Don’t call Louis when you’re drunk,” Nick says, sighing. “Made me drive back here to check on you.”

Harry mumbles something incoherent, and Nick frowns. 

“Why are you so drunk at three in the afternoon? I left you alone for, like, two hours.”

“Could’ve done worse than get drunk,” Harry slurs, and even as drunk as he is, he recognizes that subtle alarm on Nick’s face. To fix it, he says, “Heard heroin’s good.”

“Oh, God, shut up,” Nick groans, and then he laughs. He tucks his hands under Harry’s underarms and pulls him up; they stumble backward slightly, Pig huffing at them confusedly, and then they start their journey to the bedroom. Harry’s been sleeping on the couch most nights, although Nick’s kind enough to sleep on the other couch so Harry isn’t all alone. But a bed sounds nice right now. 

“I’m going to text Louis from your phone,” Nick tells him once Harry’s tucked under the blankets. Harry watches him through half-open eyes as he types. Nick reads, “‘Hi, I’m going to sleep. Sorry for bothering you. Have a nice birthday love.’ Sound fine?”

“Don’t call him love,” Harry mumbles, shutting his eyes completely. “Haven’t called him that in ages.”

“Oops, already pressed send.”

Harry sighs, and he’s about to say something. Before he can, he’s suddenly sound asleep. 

-

On Christmas, he calls his mum, and he’s sober. 

It would probably be better having this conversation drunk, though. He shot over a last-minute text after Louis left telling his mum that he wouldn’t be coming after all. She tried to call a couple of times, but Harry ignored her and she stopped calling. So, she isn’t exactly happy to hear from him. But it is Christmas, so she puts that aside and plays nice with him. He asks to speak to Gemma, and -- well. Gemma has never played nice. 

“You made Mum cry on Christmas,” she snaps as soon as the phone’s been handed to her. “I don’t want to talk to you.”

Harry closes his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

“I don’t care.”

“Gemma,” he tries, and immediately, she shuts him down. 

“No. I don’t care, Harry. Whatever it is, I don’t care. Because I haven’t heard from you since summer, and you told Mum you’d come see her for Christmas and you didn’t. You _didn’t_. You’re her baby, and you broke her heart.”

“Me and Louis are having issues, okay,” he says, desperate enough to admit that. Maybe if she understands that he’s not just being a jerk for the sake of it, he’ll catch a break. She hesitates, so he clings to the hope she might understand. “I wanted to come, but Louis said he wasn’t going to come with me, and I -- I don’t know. I didn’t want everyone asking questions.”

Slowly, Gemma asks, “What kind of issues?”

For a second, Harry struggles to come up with a response that is vague enough to answer the question but also honest. Instead, he gives up on thinking and says, “I hate him and he hates me. It’s -- we’re working on it, okay.”

“How the hell did you mess up the one good bloody thing you have?”

“Because I’m an idiot,” he says flatly. “But it’s Christmas, okay, and I don’t need to hear this from you, too. Just --- tell Mum I’m sorry. Please.”

“I’m telling them that you did shit on your finals and you’re too embarrassed to see everyone,” she says decidedly. “With an ego like yours, they’ll believe something like that. But you need to get your shit together, Harry. And that includes calling your own bloody mother every once in a while.”

“I will. Promise.”

“Sure. Merry Christmas, then.”

Harry sighs. “Merry Christmas, Gems.”

The line goes dead. 

-

_I’ve been home for three days now and you haven’t come to the flat once. Do you not live here anymore or what?_

That’s the text Harry wakes up to on the first of January, and he groans sleepily. Louis’ already mad at him; that’s not a good sign. He thought -- for some stupid reason -- that Louis would text him that he was on his way home or something. The plan was for Harry to be home when Louis got back, but clearly that didn’t happen. 

_Sorry. I’ll be home in an hour._

He gets up from the couch and starts packing his things. Nick isn’t home right now but he should be back soon, so Harry will let him know he’s leaving then. He checks his phone again five minutes later -- which is strange to do, considering nobody ever texts -- and Louis has already responded. 

_Don’t rush. I’m sure you’re having fun with Nick._ And then, _Didn’t mean that to sound so bitchy. I’d rather you have been with Nick than alone on the holidays._

And Harry doesn’t know what to make of that, so he doesn’t respond. He’ll see Louis soon, anyway. 

When he does get home, Louis’ eating at the dining table. He glances at Harry, and it’s obvious he still isn’t in a good mood. For one reason or another, although usually that reason is Harry. 

“Hi,” Harry says, hoping that’s a safe enough thing to say without causing an argument. It’s hard to tell with them anymore. Louis just nods as a response, so Harry moves to go put his things away. Before he’s made it very far, Louis curses under his breath. Harry watches him carefully. 

“I’ve not seen you for three weeks,” Louis spits, looking fierce. “You’re not going to kiss me? A hug? A pat on the fucking shoulder? _Anything?_ ” 

That’s not fair. They haven’t kissed in months, not even a quick kiss hello or goodbye. Harry wouldn’t feel comfortable just kissing him now, not when he no longer has the right to. But Louis is hurting, he must be, so Harry places his bag on the floor before coming to Louis. Louis doesn’t look at him; instead, he looks straight down at his plate. So, with his heart hammering nervously in his chest, Harry leans down and presses a kiss to Louis’ temple as gracefully as he can manage. He starts to pull away, thinking that’s enough, but for safe measure and just because he fucking wants to, he kisses Louis’ cheek, and then ducks down to kiss his shoulder. Slowly, he takes a few steps back and waits for something. What, he isn’t sure. Probably to be yelled at. 

Louis takes a deep breath, and Harry realizes for the first time that he looks faded. Tired and pale and so, so unhappy. “Did you even miss me?” he asks, voice shaking. He lets out a rough laugh and puts his head in his hands. “Because I don’t even know if I missed you. I don’t -- I don’t know. I worried about you, and I thought about you, but I don’t -- I don’t think that necessarily means I missed you.”

Harry leans against the kitchen counter, silently praying they aren’t doing this right now. That this will just be a meaningless fight and nothing more. “I missed you. Of course I missed you.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I thought about you every day,” Harry says. “I wondered if you were having a good time. I thought about your family, about your mum’s dinner. About how I didn’t get you anything this year and how guilty I felt for that. I thought. . . sometimes I’d wonder what I’d be doing, if I was there with you. If -- if we could fake it for that long.” Quietly, he says, “I think we could’ve. I think we could’ve had a nice time together.”

“My mum hates you. We couldn’t have had a nice time. We’d all just be arguing all the time. Aren’t you sick of that? Arguing?”

Harry knows that whatever he could say in response to that would be twisted the wrong way, so instead he says nothing. 

“You know,” Louis says, sitting back in his chair, and something about it -- his tone and his posture and his expression -- frightens Harry. This is going to be it, isn’t it? Louis’ going to finally leave him. “My mum gave me a pep talk about breaking up with you. She knows I need to leave you for my own fucking sanity, but I _can’t_. I still love you, even though I hardly know who you are anymore.” He looks at Harry, eyes cold. “Isn’t that mad?”

Again, Harry says nothing.

“She said that I didn’t love you anymore, that I just love the idea of you or something, or the idea of who you once were, and I think she might be right. Because the Harry I used to know would have driven to Doncaster for my birthday even though I told him not to because he would know me well enough to tell I was lying. I loved _him_. I _loved_ him. I don’t -- I mean, Harry. What are we doing here anymore?”

Harry can’t stay silent anymore. He can’t, but he doesn’t know what to say. To any of that. He’s broken them so badly that Louis’ own mother is trying to convince him to break up with him. That’s mad. Maybe they should break up if it’s really gotten that bad, but -- no. They can’t. They _can’t_. 

“We’re trying our best,” Harry says, and his voice breaks. He doesn’t care. Right now, he needs to look as sad as he feels in the hopes that’ll make Louis too guilty to leave him. That’s what they’ve come to. 

“Our best isn’t fucking good enough,” Louis snaps, looking at him like he’s insane. “This is -- God. I feel like shit all of the time because of us. Because of what we’ve turned into. I’m so sick of feeling this way.” He lets out a quiet sigh as he shakes his head. “I don’t even have the energy to argue with you anymore. I’m _tired_.”

He stands, then, and Harry, petrified, thinks that means he’s leaving. “Don’t go,” he cries, pathetic and desperate. “Louis, please, I don’t -- don’t leave me. Please don’t go.”

Somehow, Louis finds it in himself to look apologetic. “I’m just going to shower,” he says, a little breathlessly. Without another word exchanged between them, Louis heads to the bathroom. As soon as the door is shut and the water turns on, Harry sinks to the floor and sobs. 

It’d be okay if he chose to give up now. He tried. Maybe not hard enough, but for long enough for him to realize there is no point in trying anymore. Wanting to die didn’t just go away the second he decided he wasn’t going to actively try to do that; just because he pushed it into the back of his head and lied to himself and told himself everything was going to get magically better, that doesn’t mean the feeling went away. Although he’s pretty sure he never wanted to _die_ , he just -- this is a lot. Feeling this way all the time isn’t fair, and he doesn’t want that anymore, but for him, somehow, that’s all he has anymore. He thought fixing it would bring him to a better place, but he can’t do that, so maybe death really is the only option here. 

School starts back up again next week. Maybe. . . maybe he can go through with his plan again. Wait until Louis’ at school, use those old pills. He didn’t take all of them last time, and he kept them for a reason, and this is the reason. And this time, he wouldn’t stop himself. He wouldn’t -- he won’t get out of bed, he’ll just stay there and close his eyes and wait it out. Louis can’t hate him any more than he already does, so really, what’s the point in putting it off?

He forces himself to pull it together before Louis gets out of the shower. He gets up off the floor, dries his eyes, and heads to their room. He wants a nap, but as he sits in their bed he thinks, _What if I tried, just one more time?_ Actually tried, actually let himself be vulnerable with Louis again. So, he sits there in bed, waiting, and when Louis comes into the room with a towel around his waist, Harry ignores how angry he looks for just a moment. 

“You didn’t kiss me hello,” Harry says, and his voice is cracked and ugly. After he’s cleared his throat and Louis’ looking at him tiredly, Harry says, “You -- I kissed you hello, but you didn’t kiss me. That’s not fair.”

Louis stares at him for a moment before sighing and coming over to him. He leans forward and kisses Harry’s forehead, and while he’s close enough to, Harry sets his hand on the back of Louis’ neck. His eyes are squeezed shut, too scared of seeing rejection up close. Thankfully, he doesn’t have to deal with that just yet, because Louis, slowly and hesitantly, pulls away momentarily only to come back closer, pressing their lips together. 

The kiss feels wrong and foreign and terrifying, but Harry tells himself that eventually, it’ll just feel good. It used to always feel good. Louis grabs Harry’s bicep for support as he leans in closer, and it’s so much. It’s almost too much, but not enough, and it’s -- God, they’re gone. There’s nothing between them anymore. Harry shouldn’t be thinking this much when Louis is kissing him for the first time in _months_. 

They try, they really do. They keep kissing and kissing and kissing, and it’s just not working. It doesn’t feel right, it feels so, so wrong, and neither of them are willing to let themselves embarrass each other enough to take off any of their clothes when they know they’ll be putting them right back on within a few minutes. They can’t do this -- Harry’s almost certain he wouldn’t even be able to get fully hard, and that’s. . . 

“This isn’t working,” Louis whispers, pulling away. Harry agrees, so he doesn’t know why he feels so much worse when coldness is left in the place of Louis’ hand as he turns away from Harry. 

“I know.”

“No, I mean -- not just the sex. I don’t -- Harry. I don’t think we’re working anymore. Maybe you should stay with Nick again tonight.”

“No,” Harry pleads, sitting up straighter. Anxiety shreds through his stomach, and he feels nauseous with it. “No, Louis, you don’t need to -- ”

“But I do,” Louis disagrees, shaking his head. “I’m not -- we’re not going to do this tonight. Go to Nick’s tonight, and then. . . and then we can go from there.”

Harry wants to beg and plead and scream, but Louis says they aren’t doing this tonight, so maybe -- maybe they don’t have to do it at all. Maybe Louis just needs some space right now. Harry doesn’t want to push him into breaking up with him tonight, so he stays silent aside from small hiccups that escape him as Louis walks out of their room. Once he’s gone, Harry presses the heels of his hands to his eyes and tries to even out his breathing. 

As of tonight, he still has a boyfriend. Maybe he should just kill himself while that’s still true. 

-

He leaves the flat fully intending to go to Nick’s, so he’s not quite sure how he ends up at Zayn’s flat. He doesn’t even realize that’s where he’s driving until he’s turning onto their street. There’s still an option to leave before he embarrasses himself even more tonight, but he decides that nothing can make him feel worse than he already does. 

_I’m at your flat. Let me up?_ is what he texts Zayn from his car, and as he waits for his response, he works himself to tears again. 

He tried. He really did. And he’s already so, so sick of trying. The future looks bleak, and Harry isn’t sure he wants to be around to see it firsthand

Zayn’s response comes eight minutes later. _Only because Louis told me to._

Whatever, Harry will take it. He gets out of the car and goes inside the building, and once he’s buzzed in, he seriously starts to regret coming here. Why does he enjoy torturing himself so much? Zayn still hates him; nothing has changed that fact. The only reason why Harry’s even being let inside of the flat right now is because Louis told him to. Zayn’s doing this for Louis, not Harry. 

Zayn sighs at him when he opens the door. He doesn’t even seem to care that Harry’s crying. “You can sleep on the couch tonight, but you’re gone in the morning, you hear me?”

Harry wordlessly pushes past him inside. He drops his bag to the floor, takes off his shoes, and hangs up his coat. This is so stupid. Louis has every right not to forgive him, but Zayn? Come _on_. They got into _one_ fight, _one_ stupid fight, and Harry has tried to own up to his mistakes and he won’t let him. How is that fair?

Emboldened by his current disdain for life, he says, “You don’t have a right to be mad at me anymore.”

Zayn scoffs, closing the door. “Excuse me?”

“I fucked up, I get that. But you shutting me out and not even letting me make it up to you is wrong. It isn’t fair.”

“Are you serious?” Zayn asks in disbelief. “You come here, uninvited, and I don’t turn you away, but you still somehow think you have any room to be a prick right now? How are you still so entitled?”

Harry shrugs and sniffles quietly. “I’m just saying,” he says. “You’re going to regret it one day.”

Because they will, they all will. Louis will hate himself for not realizing sooner, Zayn will regret not forgiving him, Nick will feel guilt over not forcing Harry to read that email. They will all hurt, and not everyone will deserve it, but _Harry_ is hurt. Harry doesn’t deserve all of it either. Maybe killing himself will be the way to make this all even.

God, he needs to go to sleep. He’s not making sense right now, and all he is doing is scaring himself. 

“Yeah, sure,” Zayn says, laughing quietly. Harry’s already walking to the couch, uncaring of what Zayn could say right now. “You’re so fucking narcissistic, you know that?”

Harry crawls onto the couch and tries to get comfortable. He positions the couch pillow where he wants it and grabs the blanket off the back, using that to cover himself up. Once he’s comfortable, he takes the earbuds out of his pocket he shoved there before he left, plugs them into his phone, and plays music as loud as he can without it giving him a headache. He probably won’t be able to sleep tonight, but maybe laying here with music so loud that he can’t think properly is the same thing. 

-

“What is he doing here?” is what he gets woken up to. It’s barely three hours later, and it’s Niall, and he sounds more than irritation. Harry’s earbuds had fallen out, and he can distantly hear a Vance Joy song play from the earbud resting on his shoulder.

“I don’t know. They got into a fight and he thought coming here was a good idea.”

Niall sighs. “Louis needs to break up with him. He’s been saying he will for months now. I love Harry, but Jesus, he’s a wreck.”

Harry doesn’t know if he’s angrier by the fact that they’re talking crap about him when he is literally _right here_ , or by Niall saying he loves him after months of not talking to him. Or by Louis apparently telling everyone he was going to break up with Harry. It doesn’t fucking matter -- he’s just angry. 

He sits up, and he hears a sigh, he’s not sure who it is. It doesn’t even matter; they both want him gone, so he’ll leave. He’ll just got Nick’s, the one fucking person who is giving him the tiniest shred of a will to live right now. Without saying anything, he puts on his shoes, grabs his keys and bag, and just as he grabs for the door, Zayn tells him to wait. 

“Where are you going to go?” he asks, and Harry scoffs, shaking his head. 

“Don’t worry about it.”

With that, he leaves and drives over to Nick’s. Once he’s there, he doesn’t get out of the car right away. He needs to think, just for a moment. 

Louis and him are going to break up. That’s pretty much a given at this point. And then Harry will be sadder than he already is, and completely alone. He’s in his last semester of law school with no friends and no energy to try and make any. The repair of the fracture in the bond with his family doesn’t seem impossible, but difficult nonetheless. There’s nothing he has going for him, really, except maybe graduating, but that’s if he can keep his grades in check this semester, and that’s a big if. Right now, dying seems like the most justified option here. Choosing life again when that is choosing loneliness would make him crazy. 

He laughs quietly at himself at that. As if he’s sane in any scenario here. And then he cries, because he doesn’t want to die, he really doesn’t, he just has no idea how to live. How do you forget how to do that? Granted, he doesn’t have to change. He can stay miserable and alone forever if he wants, but he doesn’t. Not at all. He wants a lot of things, and that’s not one of them. Most of all, he wants to remember what it feels like to be loved again. 

After about ten minutes, he gets out of the car and heads to Nick’s apartment. He’s on the ground level so he doesn’t have to get buzzed up, he can just knock. Nick’s the only person he can count on to always answer when he comes, which probably isn’t fair on him, but he never seems to mind much. 

“I need to get you a key,” Nick says, and he looks tired, like maybe he just woke up. He lets Harry in, and Harry’s about to bend down to pet Pig when Nick grabs his elbow. “Hey,” he says, shutting the door. Harry glances at him, sniffling quietly, and Nick frowns. “I hate seeing you so sad all the time.”

Harry shrugs and lets out a watery laugh. “Guess this is just what happens when you finally meet the consequences of your actions.”

“You acted like a terrible person,” Nick tells him, his fingers tightening on Harry’s coat, “but you’re not a terrible person, so it’s not -- I think you need to make that distinction in your head. I think you need to forgive yourself before you can ask others to forgive you.”

“Yeah?” Harry asks, huffing quietly. “How the hell do I do that?”

“I haven’t got a bloody clue, mate. But I think a therapist -- you know, the totally not-scary people who are trained in this stuff -- would tell you to be honest and start, like, communicating better. I’d like to think we’re close again, but you don’t tell me anything.”

“I tell you about my problems with Louis all the time.”

“You won’t tell me what started those problems,” Nick says. “You keep saying it’s been like this for months, but you’ve never got around to telling me what started.”

“I did,” Harry says easily, confused. He’s told Nick that this was all his fault plenty of times.

“Not _who_ started it,” Nick says, voice gentle. “ _What?_ ” 

Harry doesn’t know what to say to that. He has no idea, but he kind of wants to find the words because Nick is looking at him like he could confess to murder and it wouldn’t change anything between them. He looks away from Nick, eyes burning with unshed tears, and Nick tugs on him, urging him to talk. 

So, Harry talks. 

“I tried to kill myself,” he says quietly, looking down at Pig, who is sitting in front of him, waiting patiently to be pet. “Well, I don’t know if _tried_ is the right word. It’s not like it didn’t work, it’s,” he sighs. “I didn’t let it work.”

Nick’s silent for thirty seconds, maybe more, before he mumbles, “Could you have said that anymore casually, mate? Jesus Christ.” And his voice sounds thick like he’s about to cry or maybe already doing so, but Harry can’t look at his face to tell before Nick pulls him into a hug. Harry goes easily, wrapping his arms around Nick’s middle and setting his cheek on his shoulder, but he won’t cry, he won’t. Once he starts after admitting that, he isn’t going to be able to stop, and he can’t do that right now.

“Sorry,” he whispers. “You’re the only person I’ve told, I don’t know how else I’m supposed to say it.”

“There’s not a right way, just -- here. Come sit.”

Harry lets himself be steered to the couch, and they sit down together side by side. Pig hops up, too, and Harry pets her soft back and sniffles, waiting for Nick to say something. 

“You said that you didn’t let it work,” Nick says, and he sounds like he’s talking to a child, but Harry doesn’t particularly mind it. “So, what, you -- you stopped yourself?”

Harry nods, eyes focused on the hand rubbing on Pig’s back. He can’t look at Nick right now. “I -- um. Made myself throw up. I took. . . pills. A lot of them. And then I made myself throw up because I didn’t,” his chest heaves, and he feels a little breathless. “I didn’t want it to work anymore.”

“Do you still have the pills?”

“Yeah,” he admits. But it’s only because, “There aren't that many left, though. Not enough for it to work if I tried again, I don’t think.”

“You’re not going to try again, and you’re going to throw them out anyway, you hear me?”

Harry just nods. 

There’s a small silence, and then, “I don’t know what to say. I -- I love you, and I’m glad you told me, and I’m -- God, love, I’m so sorry nobody realized you were doing this poorly. When. . . when was this?”

“First of November. Like a week or two before I came to see you, I think.”

“God, Harry,” Nick whispers, pulling him into his side. Again, Harry goes, because Nick is warm and gentle and the only human on this planet who actually likes him right now. “I would have been so bloody pissed at myself if you did that. I can only imagine what Louis would have felt, Christ.”

Harry scoffs sadly. “Relief, probably.”

“Hey,” Nick says mildly. “No. Don’t even say that. He loves you, you have to know that.”

“I’m pretty sure he’s going to break up with me the next time I see him.”

“But he still loves you,” Nick tells him, and he doesn’t sound very convincing. “Harry, darling, he wouldn’t have stayed this long if he didn’t love you. You just have to be honest with him.”

Harry tries to pull back, but Nick doesn’t let him go anywhere, so he stays slotted into Nick’s side. “I’m not telling him about this,” he says, shaking his head against Nick’s shoulder. “There’s no way. You can’t tell him, either.”

“I don’t know if I can do that,” Nick says slowly, regretfully, and Harry closes his eyes. He screwed himself over, didn’t he? “Mate, I don’t -- this isn’t just some secret. You’re still feeling poorly, okay, and Louis needs to know that. It would be irresponsible not to tell him.”

“Then be irresponsible,” Harry pleads, although it’s weak. He knows Nick isn’t going to change his mind about this. And maybe he’s right, maybe Louis needs to know about this because they’re boyfriends and they live together and he needs to know that there might be a dead body lying around the flat one day. 

God, he feels so _wrong_. That’s all he can really think of how to describe it, just -- just _not right_. Isn’t there some sort of primal instinct hardwired into humans to not want to fucking off themselves? Shouldn’t there be some sort of defense against that, and against feeling so awful all the time? How are there so many things he just _sucks_ at?

“I can’t do that,” Nick says carefully. “If you tell him, I won’t, but -- Harry.”

“I know. But I don’t want him feeling like he has to stay with me just because I’m fucking mental.”

Nick shakes his head, running his fingers over the inside of Harry’s wrist. “He won’t. He’ll stay because he wants to look after you. He hasn’t stopped looking after you, even after everything. You told me that.”

“I messed everything up, Nick. The things that I used to try and protect me before are the same things that are biting back at me now, and I don’t know what to do. I don’t -- I don’t deserve Louis, I do know that.”

“You deserve to be loved,” Nick says fiercely. “And if Louis’ the one who gets to do that, then he is lucky and you better take it because you _do._ You deserved to be loved, everyone does.”

Harry sighs quietly, not wanting to talk about this anymore. Nick must understand because he holds Harry closer and doesn’t say a word. 

-

Harry tests out the waters, at first. 

There’s no way he is going to drop this on Louis when he is certain Louis is planning on breaking up with him shortly. Nick tells him that it isn’t manipulative to do if he’s not doing it to be manipulative, but Harry is pretty sure intentions don’t matter here. Or maybe they do; he doesn’t really know. All he knows is, Louis doesn’t break up with him the next day when he comes home. Or the day after that. Or the day after that, and then it’s been three days, and Harry still has a boyfriend, even if he’s pretty sure he can’t call them that anymore. 

In the middle of the week back at university, Harry already has a test to study for. Business law, aka the most boring class he’s ever sat in. Maybe becoming a corporate lawyer wasn’t the right move if he hates this class so much, but it’s been one week so he isn’t changing his life plan just yet. He’s at the kitchen table, going over his textbook, when Louis comes home. 

Harry swallows nervously, immediately looking back down. They haven’t talked much since that last argument, mostly because Harry is scared the moment he opens his mouth, Louis is going to break up with him. But maybe -- God. They need to talk. They need to stop this. 

“How was class?” Harry asks, and Louis rolls his eyes. 

“You don’t care.”

“Yes, I do.”

Louis shrugs and heads to the living room, plopping on the couch. “I don’t care that you care then.”

It’s hard to believe that they were ever in a good relationship. That, not even a year ago, Louis would have come home and wrapped his arms around Harry as he bitched about whatever clearly put him in a bad mood, and then he’d probably convince Harry to stop doing homework to go have sex with him. They were -- God, they were, like, perfect. They had fun with each other, and they loved each other, and they respected each other. They were honest with each other. 

Harry leans back in his chair and stares at the ceiling. “I miss you, Lou.”

“I am so not in the fucking mood to play this game right now,” Louis snaps, and Harry can hear him sit up roughly. “I don’t -- shit. You know what? Maybe we should do this right now.” He comes back to the kitchen area, pulls out a chair across the table from Harry, and sets his hands on the table. “We need to talk.”

This is terrifying. Louis is in front of him, angry and hateful and all the things Nick wasn’t when Harry told him the truth. But it can’t be scarier than Louis breaking up with him, can it? He’s not completely sure, but he forces himself to take a deep breath. 

“Yeah, we do. But can we. . . can I go first?”

Louis looked irritated. “Sure. Why not.”

He should’ve practiced this with Nick. Nick told him to, had sat him down and said, _pretend I’m Louis, okay?_ And Harry felt far too uncomfortable doing that, and he feels a million times worse now. He can’t just start with his suicide attempt, but that’s the only part he really understands. 

Before, Louis always understood what he meant, no matter if Harry was drunk and slurring his words or tired and incoherent or upset and just not speaking clearly. Harry has to have faith that Louis can understand him still, even after all this time. 

“I know this is my fault,” he says slowly, and Louis actually looks surprised. He smooths it out with anger immediately, though. Harry continues. “It’s. . . It probably started in May, right? Of last year. I think that’s when I started doing irreparable damage.”

Louis eyes him carefully as he shrugs shortly, probably unsure of what Harry is going to say next. 

“When I say I don’t know what got into me,” he says, “I mean it. I’m not -- that sounds like such an excuse, I know it does, but Louis, I don’t -- I think my brain just fucking popped, okay, and it’s. . . I don’t know. I don’t -- I really don’t understand what happened. I think -- it’s hard to explain, okay. Because I think,” he sighs. “Nick thinks I’m, like, sick. Like, mentally? But it wouldn’t have happened all at once like it felt like it did. I think, anyway.”

As he talks, the anger slowly leaves Louis’ face. Now, he just looks tired. “It depends on the person,” he says, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms. “Mental illness can come on really sudden or take a long time to develop. But it didn’t just happen in May; you had been dragging your feet for months by then.”

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, feeling horrible. Louis looks away and sighs. 

“Maybe you are depressed,” he says. “Maybe you are, maybe you aren’t, I don’t know, because I don’t know you anymore.”

Harry feels. . . Louis’ probably not intentionally being dismissive, but Harry feels plenty dismissed. He was the most vulnerable with Louis he has been in a while, and Louis is acting like this is irrelevant to the conversation. 

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” Louis says once the silence between them has gone on too long. “If you’re feeling poorly, I’m sorry and I want you to get help, but you’re not going to do that and I’m not going to waste my breath trying.”

Harry bites down on his lip as he thinks of how to get Louis to stop pretending like they’ve already had this conversation before, because he hasn’t. After a moment, he realizes all he needs to do is say that. “Can we -- you said, a while ago, that if I wanted to talk to you about something serious, you would let go of our issues and listen. Can you try to do that? Please?”

“I _am_ listening,” Louis says, almost snapping. 

“Louis,” Harry pleads. “I am -- I’ve acted like a terrible person for a long time, and I know that. I know that I’m lucky you’re even sitting in front of me right now. But this is -- this is serious, okay, and I don’t know how to tell you this when I feel like you’re about to attack me.”

Louis doesn’t snap at him or leave or storm away; he sighs, glances at Harry again, and nods. “Okay. Sorry. Tell me what?” Harry hesitates, and Louis shakes his head. “You can tell me anything. You know that. You’ve always known that.”

Harry nods, praying that that’s true. 

“Over the summer,” he starts, and his voice shakes. He clears his throat. “Over the summer, in July, I think, I -- um. I decided that I was going to -- ” his voice is strained and thin, and he has no idea how he’s going to admit to this right now. He tries his best. “I decided I was going to, like, commit suicide? Um. I don’t -- ”

“Harry,” Louis says slowly, sounding alarmed. Harry drags his eyes back to him, not knowing when he looked away. Louis looks -- God, he looks soft and caring and patient. He’s looking at Harry like he used to. 

“I know,” Harry says pathetically, sniffling. “I know, it’s so -- it’s so fucked. I’m so -- I don’t get how it happened, it just did, and I didn’t -- God.” He sets his hands on the table, trying to collect himself, and the tears get about a million times worse when Louis reaches forward to grab his hand. Harry sobs as Louis wraps both his hands around one of Harry’s, squeezing him tightly, and Louis shushes him. 

“Hey. It’s okay. We’re just talking.”

Harry sets his hand over Louis’ and hangs his head, trying to calm himself down enough to talk. Louis’ hands on his feels so fucking good, but it’s -- Harry doesn’t deserve this. Louis sat down here to break up with him, and now he’s dealing with Harry crying. Louis’ too -- God, he’s too good. He’s too good for Harry. 

“After July,” Harry says, trying to get through this. “I don’t -- I guess I felt like I didn’t have a reason to be nice anymore, that I was going to be gone soon anyway, so I -- I became even meaner, I know that I did, and I’m so sorry, I’m so -- I’m so sorry. And I guess I thought it would have been easier for my mum and stuff if she hated me before I died, I don’t know. I really don’t. But I -- Louis. I almost did it, I almost did, and I don’t know how it got so bad or how I can fix it but I want to _fix_ it, I want to fix it.”

“You can’t ever do that to me, you hear me?” Louis says, and his voice is wrecked. Harry picks his head up to look at him, and Louis’ crying, and it’s -- shit. This all hurts so badly. “You can’t ever do that to me, okay?”

“I tried to,” he confesses, and the words sound like they’re ripped out of him, almost, because of how raw his voice has gotten. “I -- I had those pills from when I had surgery on my wrist. I didn’t take them because you had me worried I was going to get addicted to them somehow, so I had a bunch, and I -- in November, I almost did. I had to throw them up, and it -- they almost didn’t -- I almost couldn’t do it, Louis, I was so scared, I was so scared, I was -- ”

“Okay, it’s okay, everything’s alright,” Louis says soothingly, and he stands up. Harry sobs for some stupid reason, and Louis comes closer and wraps his arms around his shoulders, pulling him into his chest. Harry tries to pull away, hating himself for being selfish enough to accept Louis’ love after everything he’s done, but Louis doesn’t let him get far. His hold is nearly crushing, and after a few seconds, Harry gives up and nearly collapses into him, clinging to Louis’ arm. He cries and he cries, and it only gets worse when Louis kisses the top of his head and lets out a soft cry of his own. 

As he holds him, Louis says a lot of things. That he wishes Harry had told him sooner, how sorry he is, that he had no idea, that he should’ve realized sooner. He blames himself, and that’s not fair, not at all, but Harry isn’t the right place to deal with that right now. Because, right now, Louis is touching him and holding him and being intimate with him, and that hasn’t happened in a long time and might not happen again after this. Harry isn’t stupid; telling Louis might explain the last year or so, but it doesn’t fix anything. It doesn’t change anything, not really. Louis might not break up with him tomorrow because of what Harry told him tonight, but maybe in a week from now, or a month, or a year -- however long it takes Louis to convince himself Harry won’t off himself the second he leaves. 

Harry talks, too. He mostly says he’s sorry a lot, and every time, it’s echoed by Louis telling him not to apologize. 

Harry has no idea how much time passes before Louis stands up straighter, still keeping Harry pressed close. “Let’s go to bed, okay?” he asks, voice croaky. “We can talk about this more later, I just -- ” He doesn’t finish that sentence, but Harry likes to think that maybe he was going to say _I just need to be close to you_ or _I just want to hold you._ Something like that. 

“Okay,” he says shakily, shutting his laptop. Louis guides him to the room like Harry couldn’t have gotten there by himself, and Harry doesn’t even mind it. They let go of each other momentarily to get into bed, but as soon as they’re under the blankets, Louis tugs him closer. Harry tucks himself into Louis’ side and sets his head on Louis’ chest, and it’s nice even if it makes him feel like a fraud. This isn’t real; this affection is born out of fear and panic and regret, and that’s not right, but nothing is right, so it’s okay. It has to be. 

Maybe it’s because they’re lying in bed together -- properly lying in bed, cuddling and close -- that Harry cries even harder once they’re settled. He cries, and he cries, and he cries some more, and it’s fucking cathartic because he hasn’t properly cried about any of this since the first of November. Tears that rush to his eyes during an argument or that slip out when he’s feeling sad don’t count; this type of pain can’t be released by a few lousy tears. At least, that’s how he justifies himself sobbing until he physically can’t anymore and his chest hurts. 

While he’s sniffling quietly, Louis pets his hair and asks, “Do you have any more pills? And you can’t lie to me.”

“No,” Harry answers honestly, voice hoarse. “No. Nick made me throw them out.”

There’s a pause, and then a hesitant, “Nick knows?”

“I had to tell someone,” Harry whispers, hoping that doesn’t make Louis mad. It probably does, but Louis doesn’t say that. He doesn’t say anything before Harry falls asleep, being dragged under by the weight of the last hour. 

-

Nick encouraged Harry to see a therapist. Louis demands it. 

At first, it’s gentle nudging. That quickly turns into well-intentioned badgering, going on and on about how therapy isn’t a big deal, and the university’s clinic is free, and there’s really no point in not going. It’s the worst when Louis goes full nurse-mode on him. 

It’s not like Harry is scared of the idea of the therapy, and he can acknowledge that maybe he should go. But it’s not like Harry can walk in there saying he was suicidal a month or two ago, can he? That’ll get him in trouble, he’s pretty sure, no matter how many times Louis tells him that isn’t true.

After a week of trying to adapt to this newfound territory, Harry is almost certain that adding this into their mess was. . . not a mistake, but not good for them. There are deep-rooted issues that they still need to work through, ones that pop up abruptly through tired jabs or long stretches of uncomfortable silence or the way Harry squirms when Louis touches him sometimes. Louis just wants to comfort him, and Harry fully wants that comfort, but it’s -- it’s not that easy. Throwing another stressor into the mix is exactly what he did, even if it was for the best. 

They don’t fit together anymore. That was obvious when they spent their days on opposite sides of the room, and it’s even more obvious when they’re sitting right next to each other. 

Waking up with someone right in his space is something he would never have dreamed of complaining about a week ago, but now, it feels like an intrusion. They aren’t cuddling, but Louis’ much closer than he would have been before all of this and he has his hand on Harry’s hip like he’s reminding himself that he’s still there. It’s not that it isn’t nice, because it is, but Louis went from being nowhere to everywhere all at once. It’s hard to adjust to. 

Harry grabs his phone, and there’s a text from Nick. _He’s trying to figure it out too,_ it says. _Just give it time._ It’s a response to the text Harry sent to him just before bed, after yet another long, tiring discussion about why therapy is important. _I don’t know if he’s just not being what I need or if I don’t know what I need at all_ , he wrote. _All this just feels stuffy._ Looking back at it now, it doesn’t feel particularly fair on Louis, who would still have every right to leave him. But Harry is trying to find his footing, in life and in school and in his relationships, and he thinks it’s okay if he sometimes words things a little harshly. 

Harry is so, so careful about getting out of bed, and he doesn’t even shut the bathroom door all the way so he doesn’t wake Louis, but somehow, by the time he’s done pissing and heading to the living room, Louis’ leaning against the kitchen counter with a glass of water in his hand, looking tired. 

“You don’t have class until tonight,” Louis says. “Why are you up so early?”

“Eight o’clock isn’t that early, and I have an essay to write. You don’t have class at all today. Why are _you_ up so early?” He doesn’t say it meanly, just -- Harry doesn’t like feeling watched, doesn’t like knowing someone is analyzing his every move. Especially when that person is the same person who has made him feel terrible not too long ago. 

“I’m allowed to worry about you,” Louis says quietly, looking small. 

“I’m fine, Louis.”

“You aren’t. Lying just makes me more paranoid.”

Harry sighs, moving to sit at the table. He opens his laptop and powers it up, and as it turns on, he glances back at Louis. “I’m not going to hurt myself is all I meant. You don’t have to worry about that.”

“That’s not all I’m worried about,” Louis says, sounding hurt, almost. “You’re my boyfriend, not some patient I’m watching that is being kept on suicide watch. You’re,” he takes a deep, shaky breath like he’s getting worked up. “It’s my job to look after you.”

Harry doesn’t mean to roll his eyes, he really doesn’t, but that’s bullshit. Neither of them has looked after the other properly in _months_. Pretending like that isn’t true is what’s going to drive Harry mad, not anything else. 

“Don’t do that,” Louis says sternly, and Harry lets out a small scoff. 

“Why not? We can’t just pretend we’re in a functioning relationship where I can just tell you all about my stupid fucking feelings and not feel like a complete moron. It’s -- we’ve avoided talking about that when it’s arguably the main issue here for months, but the minute I tell you something, you want to fixate on that instead.” He swears quietly and rubs at his forehead. “I’m not trying to be mean, I’m just irritated.”

Louis’ quiet before he says, “I’m sorry if I’ve made you feel stupid for having feelings.”

“That’s not it,” Harry says exasperatedly. “That’s -- Louis, _I_ caused this. I am the one who fucked it up, and I’m the one who is still fucking it up, so why would I have any right to complain to you?”

“If you’re mentally ill, then -- ”

“Then I’m still a fucking asshole. That doesn’t change anything. And don’t call me that.”

“It changes a lot of things,” Louis tells him, confused, and Harry shakes his head. 

“It doesn’t. It really doesn’t. Maybe it provides, like, some context, or some reasoning, but it doesn’t excuse anything I’ve done. It doesn’t mean you can start babying me or something. You hated me a week ago.”

Louis looks wounded. “I did not hate you.”

“Yes, you did!” Harry shouts, feeling fucking insane. “You hated me, and I hated you, and that’s -- this doesn’t change that. You can’t just focus on my problem when you’ve been ignoring your own for months.”

“Then why did you tell me?” Louis asks, finally snapping back. “What the fuck did you expect me do, Harry? _Not_ support you? Belittle you? I’m not going to fucking do that.”

“I told you so you wouldn’t break up with me. Because I,” his swallows thickly, and he can feel himself flush. “Because I need you, but I don’t know how to need you. Not when we’re in a bad place.”

“We’re not going to get out of this bad place if you don’t accept me trying to do good.”

Harry looks down at the table, trying to slow his thoughts. Nothing Louis is saying is wrong, but for once, Harry feels like he’s saying all the right things, too. Both of what they are feeling is justified, but it clashes, and that’s Harry’s whole problem. They can’t just force each other to work or else they’ll fall apart worse than before. But that’s stupid; Harry’s been desperate for Louis to even look at him nicely for months, and now here Louis is, begging for Harry to let him help, and Harry doesn’t know how to take it. 

Quietly, he says, “I guess I just don’t know how to.”

“Be honest with me, first of all. If I’m being fucking annoying, tell me I’m being fucking annoying. I want to help you, not make you turn around and tell Nick I’m hounding you.” Harry frowns, and Louis shrugs hastily. “We talk. We’ve talked for months. And it’s always about you, because I have been trying to fix this for a while, too, you know.”

“Why did it take me telling you I almost killed myself for us to have this talk? Don’t you think that’s a little messed up?”

Louis shakes his head. “No,” he says. “Of course we should have figured this out sooner, but you being honest with me was a real fucking eye-opener. Because you’re. . . you were right. I do hate you a little bit. And I thought I wanted to be far away from you, but picturing what the hell I would have done if you were away forever makes me feel the worst pain I think I’ve ever felt.”

“You can want to be away from me and still not want me dead,” Harry whispers, and he’s seconds away from crying and it’s eight in the morning and he has an essay to write. This is all too much. “You not wanting me dead isn’t mutually exclusive with wanting me as a boyfriend. Or even a friend.”

“True,” Louis says slowly, “but I do want you as my boyfriend. Not -- not like it has been the last few months, but before that. When we were good -- I want that back. I don’t want to walk away from that. Or you.”

“I was nice to you and fucked you every once and a while. You could find that with thousands of guys that isn’t me.”

Louis makes a face. “Do _you_ want to break up?”

“No,” Harry says quickly. So quickly. Embarrassingly quickly. He sighs, putting his head in his hands. “I don’t feel like you should stay with me, though. Even your mum thinks that. I don’t deserve you.”

“I had suspicions that you weren’t doing okay mentally and I kept quiet about it because I was mad at you. And then you almost killed yourself. I’m not a good boyfriend, either.”

“You kept quiet about it because I would’ve chewed you out for ever saying something like that to me,” Harry disagrees. Louis gives him an impressed look. 

“Please. I was never _scared_ of you. You aren’t scary. Maybe -- sure, I knew it would have gotten me yelled at, but I didn’t not talk to you about it because of that. I didn’t talk to you about it because I didn’t want to talk to you at all, and that was selfish. And wrong. And I would have regretted it so much if you had died and I could have helped in some way.”

“It wouldn’t have been your fault,” Harry says, sliding his fingers over his forehead to rub at his temples. He has a headache growing there. “I isolated myself; it wasn’t your responsibility to get through to me, it was my responsibility to let you in.”

Louis sighs, and there’s a small pause before he comes and sits down next to Harry at the table. He sets his cup of water down and folds his hands together on the table. Harry watches him through his hands, and slowly, he puts his own hands in his lap. He feels childish, and he hates it. 

“Last year,” Louis starts, “before my mum got sick. It was -- God, I think it was June. You had been so. . . down. Mopey. And I thought you just weren’t used to not being busy, so I let it go. And then when school started back up, it was like you shrunk up a bit. You were always so anxious and quick to beat yourself up, but I thought that was normal, you know? You’re a law student. And then when my mum was sick. . . I can’t quite remember what it was that made me think something was wrong, but I remember thinking, _God, I can’t take care of him right now, too_. So I ignored it more, and then it sort of just felt normal, you being a little. . . a little less you.” Louis shrugs. “I think it was March that Zayn pointed out you had been drinking more. But who wasn’t a social drinker, you know? And Zayn said you slept a lot more and ate a little less and that you were becoming snippy, and I should’ve listened to him, probably, because he saw you in ways that I didn’t, but it’s -- I don’t know. I thought Zayn was looking too far into things.”

“I miss him living here with us,” Harry says, and he sounds petulant, but it’s okay. Louis just gives him a nod and a small smile. 

“Me too.” He sucks in a sharp breath before continuing. “I remember knowing something was wrong when you did poorly on that one exam you had. You never, ever had done that before, and you didn’t even care, it seemed like. And then Zayn told me that no, you did care and that you were up half the night crying about it, but I didn’t say anything about it because it didn’t happen again. I just kept ignoring everything until it became too hard to ignore, until you reached your breaking point and snapped. I’m not. . . I’m not saying that this is my fault. I’m not saying that it isn’t yours, either. But I am saying that we need to be nicer to ourselves and each other because there is a whole lot of shit we both would have done differently if given the chance. And I don’t want to give up on us, so we can’t give up on ourselves.”

The entire time Louis speaks, Harry has to fight back tears, so as soon as the first sniffle escapes him, he can’t really stop it. It’s just -- hearing Louis explain how gradual it was makes Harry feel a lot calmer. Safer. Harry’s brain didn’t randomly fail, it wilted with sickness over time, and that’s a lot less scary to think about. And now Harry knows for sure that Louis believes him when he said that was doing poorly, not that he didn’t before, it’s just. . . reassuring, having someone else there. Having Louis remind him that he was right next to Harry the entire time, no matter how far away he seemed. 

“It’s okay to cry,” Louis tells him, probably seeing how Harry is trying and failing to keep it together. Harry lets out an ugly noise, and a mix between a sob and a laugh, and he hangs his head in shame. But maybe Louis is right; maybe this isn’t either of their faults. Maybe they didn’t do enough to stop everything from falling apart, but that doesn’t mean either of them should have to solely burden the blame. 

“Can I hug you?” Louis asks, and immediately, Harry nods, shoulders shaking with cries. Louis stands and wraps his arms around Harry’s shoulders, and Harry leans into him, trying to soften the hurt he feels. 

Harry doesn’t know what’s going to happen next, but he’s certain now that he won’t go at it alone. That’s all he really needed.

-

Telling Nick and Louis the truth isn’t as freeing as he had convinced himself it would be. It’s. . . yes, he doesn’t have to lie anymore. Yes, it bought him another chance with Louis. But it also brought everything he tried so hard to push down and ignore to the forefront of his mind, and Louis and Nick bringing it up all the time makes it worse. He’s sadder than he was before, or maybe he’s just letting himself feel it more. Either way, communicating didn’t fix everything like he hoped it would. 

Thankfully, Harry doesn’t have a ton of time to sit around and think about it all the time. When he isn’t focusing on school, he’s at Nick’s, and when he’s not at Nick’s, he’s with Louis. Actually _with_ Louis. They’re trying to figure it out, and that involves a lot of mostly-silent TV watching and dinners and awkward questions about each other’s day. They’re faking it, but it’s okay, because Harry is becoming more and more hopeful that it’ll turn real soon. 

The point is, Harry is still devastatingly sad, but there are more things protecting him from it now. 

There’s one night, about two weeks after Harry told Louis, when they’re in bed and trying to go to sleep. Harry can’t shut his mind off and he’s well aware that Louis is awake, too, but he feels too awkward to say anything. After twenty or so minutes, Louis turns onto his back, his shoulder bumping against Harry’s back, and sighs.

“What?” Harry asks quietly, turning a little bit towards him. His weight is pressed against Louis like that, and it makes his stomach flip. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t take you home with me for Christmas.”

Harry presses closer to his pillow and shrugs. “It’s okay,” he says, as if that wasn’t the most heartbroken he has ever felt. 

“No, it’s not. I felt bad about doing it, I really did. Was halfway to Donny and I almost convinced myself to turn back around. I couldn’t stand the thought of you being alone all that time.”

“I wasn’t alone. I was at Nick’s.”

“Yeah,” Louis mumbles, sounding distant. It’s followed by a few minutes of silence, so Harry shuts his eyes, trying to sleep. He realizes, though, that Louis shouldn’t be the only one apologizing here. 

“I’m sorry I was a dick to you about failing that class last year,” he says, opening his eyes. It’s definitely not the worst thing he has to apologize for, but it’s something he still feels guilty about. Come to think of it, though, “And I’m sorry I got into a fight with Zayn back in November, but he really did start it.”

“I know he did,” Louis says. “We talked about it. He said that either you had become a really good liar or you were genuinely sorry.” He blows out a slow breath. “Told him that you were probably just lying.”

“I wasn’t,” Harry says, maybe a little defensively. “I miss him. Of course I miss him.”

“You should think about telling him. Maybe -- ”

“I don’t think so,” Harry interrupts, frowning. “I don’t think he wants to forgive me, and I’m not going to guilt someone into being my friend.”

“Just think about it,” Louis says, and Harry nods stiffly, even though he’s almost positive he’ll never get Zayn back into his life the way he wants him to be. 

Another five or so minutes pass of silence before Louis turns towards him, and then there are hesitant hands on Harry’s body. “Can we cuddle?” Louis asks. And he sounds so small, so uncertain, that it makes Harry go hot with shame. 

“I don’t know,” he says, and Louis quickly takes his hands off him, but Harry is quicker to grab one of them and keep him close. He looks at Louis, trying to read his expression in the dark. “I’m just saying that I’m probably not going to be able to sleep very well and I don’t want to keep you awake.”

“Oh. I don’t mind.”

Harry squeezes Louis’ hand tighter than he means to and nods. “Okay,” he whispers. “But I wanna cuddle you.”

It’s a little awkward, moving around to get comfortable. Louis shifts towards the center of the bed, turning around so that his back is facing Harry. Hesitantly, Harry shifts closer, and he regrets asking for this as he tries to figure out a not-awkward way to wrap his arm Louis’ waist. But Louis reaches behind him and grabs Harry’s hand, tugging his arm closer, so Harry ungracefully tucks his legs behind Louis’ and wraps an uncertain arm around his middle. They’re so stiff for a few minutes, Harry thinking about how embarrassing it would be if he got hard in the morning and Louis was still this close, and Louis thinking God only knows what. But slowly, Louis relaxes, and Harry’s right behind him, taking his release of tension as a sign that it’s okay to do it, too. He melts further against Louis and tucks his face against his shoulder, and Louis rubs his fingers over Harry’s hand.

“I never thought we would do this again,” Louis whispers, sounding a little choked up about it, and Harry strengthens his hold. He’s not going to let go. 

-

Harry’s at the kitchen table -- when is he not, honestly, especially as of late; somehow, his last semester of university has come with a bigger workload than he was expecting -- doing a stupid outline for a stupid case when there’s a knock on the door. Harry stares at the door for a few seconds, trying to figure out who it might be. He decides it’s probably just Louis forgetting something, considering he left only fifteen minutes ago for class (and he kissed Harry goodbye like it was the most natural thing in the world). Harry stands and opens the door, and his stomach drops when he sees Zayn standing there. 

“Louis’ not here,” he says quickly, wanting him to leave. He doesn’t want to deal with this -- the awkwardness that will come, the tension between them, the fight that will undoubtedly emerge if they’re around each other for more than a few minutes. 

“I know,” Zayn says. He’s clenching his jaw as his eyes flick behind Harry, and he says, “Can I come in?”

Harry’s hand tightens on the door. “Why?”

“Because.”

“I’m not in the mood to do this today,” Harry says, sounding pleading even to his own ears. “So can we just not?”

“We have to.”

“We really don’t.”

Zayn sighs, dragging his eyes back to Harry. “Louis told me, Harry. About -- you know. About what almost happened in November.”

Heat rushes to Harry’s face and he swallows thickly before doing his absolute best to wipe everything in his head and calm down. “More of a reason to not do this today,” he says, voice shaking. He’s so angry at Louis, so fucking -- but he can’t feel that right not, not when Zayn is standing right in front of him. 

“I want to talk to you,” Zayn tells him. “About everything. Just let me come in.” Harry stupidly stares for a few seconds, so Zayn laughs quietly and says, “Weren’t you begging me to talk to you a few months ago?”

Harry narrows his eyes at him. “When I was blindingly suicidal and clutching at straws to help me stay alive, and you rejected me? Yeah.”

“I didn’t know that back then.”

“You don’t have to know what people are going through to be kind to them.”

“Like you were kind to all of us?” Zayn asks, furrowing his eyebrows. “And, look. We’re talking. Clearly we both have things to say, and I’d rather not say them in the middle of the hallway. So, let me come in.”

Harry does not have the energy right now. 

“Let me in now or I’ll come back a different day, but I’ll use the key I still have instead of knocking,” Zayn says exasperatedly, and Harry sighs, opening the door and stepping back so Zayn can come in. He does, and he stands awkwardly in the kitchen as Harry shuts the door. There’s a silence that Harry thinks will last forever, but then Zayn strides forward and sits on the couch. Harry follows, feeling awkward and out of place even though this is his own home.

It used to be Zayn’s, too. 

“What did Louis tell you exactly, then?” Harry asks hesitantly. He doesn’t want to have this conversation, but if they have to, then he at least wants to figure out who said what behind his back. 

“That we are all terrible people who abandoned you in your time of need and drove you to suicide,” Zayn says, and he sounds so casual about it. He figures Zayn’s always been like that. “I don’t agree with that, and I don’t like Louis blaming himself, but -- ”

“I’ve told him it wasn’t his fault,” Harry snaps. “Don’t put that on me. If he feels guilty, that’s not my fault.”

“I wasn’t saying it was.”

Harry crosses his arms over his chest. “What _are_ you saying?”

“That Louis was right when he said that we would have felt guilty as all shit if you had actually done it,” Zayn says, and there’s a little more seriousness to his voice. Harry feels himself soften, but immediately, he stiffens back up. “I really don’t think me or Louis could have ever gotten passed losing you like that.”

“Well, you didn’t. And I don’t like talking about it like that.”

Zayn eyes him curiously. “Like what?”

“Like I almost ruined his life even more. I didn’t. . . I didn’t think about that. About -- I thought everyone would be better off. Relieved, like.” Tears prick his eyes and he glances off to the side; he’s not willing to cry in front of Zayn. 

“I can’t tell you how much that isn’t true, Haz.”

“Well, whatever. I didn’t do it, so it doesn’t even matter. Why are you here?”

“Because Louis is trying to find ways to help get you back on track, and he thinks me reaching out to you will help.” Zayn pauses, and then, “I can be there for you if you want me to be, mate.”

“I want you to be there for me because _you_ want to,” Harry snaps, shaking his head. “I told Louis I didn’t want you to know, and then he fucking told you anyway.”

“Don’t be mad at him.”

Harry scoffs, turning to glare at him. “I can be mad at whoever I want.”

“He’s worried sick about you,” Zayn says, close to snapping, too. “He’s trying to make it right. We both agree that this isn’t his problem to solve, but he doesn’t get that, okay, and he’s trying his hardest to make it right for you.”

“You’re here for him, not me.”

Zayn shakes his head. “That isn’t true. He told me not to tell you that I know.”

“I don’t need your pity, Zayn. You made it very clear you don’t want me back in your life.”

“I want _you_ back in my life, not that prick who yelled at me at our friend’s house.”

“Those are the same fucking people,” Harry nearly shouts. “I’m not the same person I was, and I can’t ever be that person again, so just -- just go. Seriously. I don’t want you coming here out of guilt to try and be my friend. I don’t need friends, not if it’s going to be like that.”

Zayn frowns and leans forward on the couch. “Louis said you didn’t feel like you deserved his forgiveness or understanding. Is that like this? Because, H -- you can’t want us back in your life and actively push us away at the same time.”

“That’s for me and Louis to figure out, not you,” Harry says, and his voice cracks a little. “ _He_ was there for me even when he didn’t have to be, _not_ you. So I want to figure this out with him, not with someone who is only here to make Louis happy.”

“That’s not true.”

“I ruined everything,” Harry says, “and I haven’t figured out how to un-ruin it, so let me,” he takes a deep breath. “Let me figure that out and actually earn your forgiveness rather than us trying to pretend like everything’s okay. I get that from Louis already; I can’t take that from you, too.”

Zayn’s quiet for a minute, studying Harry’s face, before he nods. “Okay,” he says, still nodding. “Okay. I get that. I’ll leave, if you want me to.”

Harry nods, swallowing around a lump in his throat. “Yeah, please. I have homework to do.”

Once Zayn’s gone, Harry sits back down at the kitchen table and buries himself into homework to try and push past the tears. It works, mostly. 

-

When Louis gets home from class, Harry is stretched out on the couch and he’s not planning on bringing up Zayn. He’s mad at Louis for telling him, except he’s not because he’s far too tired to be mad. And being mad means they would have to talk about it, and Harry doesn’t want to talk right now. So, he’s beyond annoyed when Louis sits by his feet and quietly says that he asked Zayn not to tell him that he knew. 

“Doesn’t matter,” Harry mumbles, staring at the TV. “You shouldn’t have told him. Or wanted him to lie about knowing. But it’s. . . fine. I don’t care.”

“You can be mad,” Louis says, setting a hand on Harry’s ankle. Harry forces himself not to shake it off. 

“I am, but I’m so sick of talking about this. So, it’s fine.”

“That’s not healthy, love.”

Harry’s stomach flips stupidly, his whole body going hot with the pet name. He shrugs, trying to remain discreet. “It’s fine.”

“Okay,” Louis says, letting out a slow breath. Thankfully, he lets it go. 

-

Harry slowly starts to realize that he has no idea what he needs. He knows what he wants: for all of the relationships he broke to be mended, his education completed successfully, his family back in his life. But he doesn’t know what he _needs_. How to get there. That’s the problem here, really. 

Nick is starting to realize this, too. 

“Maybe what you two need is time apart,” he tells him one day. Harry’s sprawled out in his bed, watching Nick fold laundry as a movie plays in the background. Harry was on campus at the same time as Nick was this morning, so they made plans to meet back at Nick’s flat. 

Harry frowns at him. “The only thing I do know for sure I want is Louis.”

“I didn’t say break up with him, I said spend time apart. It could do you good.”

“We spent time apart over the holidays and it all but ruined us.”

“A _month_ after you tried to kill yourself,” Nick says, turning to give him a funny look. “Things are different now. Better.”

“I don’t know.”

Nick finishes up folding his laundry and then sits next to Harry on the bed. He sighs and says, “I know you don’t know. You don’t know a lot of things. But do you know who _does_ know things?”

Harry groans, turning his head away from Nick. “I don’t know if I want to see a therapist or not. Stop bringing it up.”

“Why _not?_ A therapist can help you with your emotional stuff _and_ your relationship stuff. If you don’t want to go for yourself, go for Louis.”

Harry picks his head up to narrow his eyes at him. “That’s manipulative, I’m pretty sure.”

“Oops.”

But Harry starts to think about that a little more as the days go on and the distance between him and Louis linger. If he were to see the school’s therapist, they’d probably expect him to talk about, like, school stress, or about feeling depressed, not his love life. But he’s certain he wouldn’t be the only one to go in and cry about his boyfriend, so looking a little stupid doesn’t deter him from the idea. It’s -- it’s not that he doesn’t want to go to therapy, it’s more that he doesn’t feel. . . accepted, almost. Like he’s so messed up in the head that a therapist is going to have no idea what to do with him. Which is stupid, probably. 

Finally, he opens up that email from Nick from forever ago. In the email, there’s a link that he clicks which takes him to the university’s counseling website. There are a few pages of information that he skims through, one of them being options for seeing a licensed therapist on campus. _We provide in-person appointments, as well as online meetings and sessions conducted over the phone in order to remain as open and welcoming as possible._ That peaks Harry’s interest, a bit. If he doesn’t have to physically go to someone’s office and sit down and talk about his feelings, if he can stay home and talk to someone in the comfort of his bed -- maybe that’s better. He’s almost certain there would be a difference in the helpfulness of the appointment. He bites on his thumbnail as he thinks about it, weighing out the pros and cons, and in the end, he finds himself quickly typing in his information to sign up for an online meeting with a counselor for two days from now during a time that Louis is at his internship. As he stares at the confirmation screen, he regrets it a little bit, but he forces himself to choke that down. There’s nothing scary or dumb about this, and if he absolutely hates it, then he never has to go again. 

To make sure he has someone more reliable than himself to hold himself accountable, he takes a screen-grab of the website and emails it to Nick. He regrets that afterwards, too, but he’s pretty sure that’s just instinct. Nick replies within a minute, and Harry actually feels sort of good about himself as he reads Nick’s response. 

_Hallelujah!! Good luck mate, proud of you xxxxx tell Louis it’ll make him happy._

Harry shuts the laptop and lays back in bed. It’s just one appointment -- he’s pretty sure if he can get through that one dentist appointment that he had as a kid where he got chewed out for having so many cavities, then he can get through this, too. 

-

He ends up crying only a half hour into the hour long appointment. He’s sitting on Louis’ side of the bed, underneath the covers with the laptop on his lap, crying, with a literal stranger staring at him with a sorry expression through a screen. He supposes he’s been in weirder situations before, but what the _fuck_. He wasn’t supposed to bloody _cry_. 

“It’s okay,” the counselor, Mr. Helms, tells him. “Lots of people cry. It’s natural.”

“All I do is cry anymore,” Harry mumbles, wiping at his cheeks. He’s so glad he didn’t do this in person; he feels less exposed, and he also feels safe under their blankets. It’s familiar here when he’s entering terribly unfamiliar territory. 

“You’d mentioned being emotional before. Can you tell me more about that?”

“I cry a lot,” he says, feeling a little stupid saying it out loud. “And, like. I get angry a lot, too. Not as much anymore, I don’t think, but I’m -- I don’t know. Just emotional, I guess. All the time.”

“Do you feel like you have issues controlling your anger?”

Harry presses his tongue to the back of the teeth and hesitates at responding to that. “Yes, but it’s not like I’m not a hothead or something. Like, I didn’t used to be that way. It just sort of happened. Well, Louis said it didn’t just happen, he said it was more gradual, but I don’t remember feeling down until I felt unbearably awful, so I don’t know.”

It goes on that way for the rest of the appointment, just Harry talking and talking. Usually he’s talking in circles or not making complete sense, but it doesn’t really feel like it matters. Mr. Helms isn’t his boyfriend or friend or sister -- he’s a professional who has to listen to Harry make no sense for an hour straight and not feel any type of way about it. It’s. . . Harry honestly feels better after the session is over and he’s lying in bed, his head resting on Louis’ pillow. Sure, nothing productive got done today, there was no soul-searching, but Harry got to talk unfiltered about his issues and the way Mr. Helms tried to pick them apart didn’t feel condescending or pitying. He feels a little less bottled up, a little more understood, a little less of a loss cause. All because he talked to somebody and they nodded and said they understood and called him normal. Maybe that means he has a low self-esteem or something, but whatever. It felt nice. It doesn’t need to be more complicated than that. 

When Louis comes home, Harry’s asleep on his side of the bed still, and he wakes when Louis sits at the end of the bed to take his shoes off. Harry feels caught, for some reason, about being on his side of the bed. Louis smiles when he realizes he’s awake. 

“I like coming home and not having to pretend like I don’t want to talk to you,” Louis says, and Harry nods in response. It _is_ nice. Even when there are long stretches of silence between them, just knowing that Harry could say something if he wanted to makes his head feel clearer somehow. And even though that’s true, he doesn’t want to tell Louis about the therapy appointment. Louis’ expectations of him need to remain low, because Harry can’t take disappointing him anymore. 

Harry grabs his phone off the side table and sees a text from Zayn. It’s a little irritating, but there’s been no backlash when Harry ignored the last two messages, so he figures it’s harmless. It’s a simple, vague, _I’m bored if you’re up for a chat_ , and Harry decides it’s okay to ignore it because it was from forty minutes ago. 

“Can I ask you a question?” Louis asks just as Harry is texting Nick. He glances up and nods, feeling heat spread in his chest. Louis sighs quietly and shifts towards him. “Do you think we’ll be okay? Like, our relationship.”

Harry drops his gaze to the sheets immediately, feeling hot with dread and shame and regret, all of which Louis most likely does not want him to feel. It’s hard not to. “I think we could be,” he says quietly. “I think. . . I hope so.”

“I told my mum today that we were trying to work on things,” Louis says, and Harry looks up at him wide eyes, insecure just at the thought of Louis’ mum talking poorly about him. “She thinks I’ve lost the plot, but it’s okay. She doesn’t have to understand it.”

“I hate that she hates me.”

“She doesn’t hate you, she’s disappointed in you.” Louis hesitates before he says, “And that’s probably worse, honestly, but when you’re better and you can charm her again, she’ll be right back on team Harry, I promise.”

He snorts. For a moment, he thinks about avoiding being self-deprecating right now, but he says fuck it. “You say ‘when you’re better’ like I’m sick. I’m not sick, I don’t think.”

“Debatable,” Louis says. “But even if you aren’t, the bottom-line goal here is for you to get better right? To _be_ better. That’s the goal for both of us, no?” And that’s not wrong, that’s actually completely true, so Harry nods slowly. 

“Yeah. Yeah, I guess so.”

-

Nick was right: to be better, they have to be apart. 

Nick was the first to say it. Mr. Helms was the second. Harry was the third to question it, but he didn't bring it up. Being apart could cause Louis to realize he’s much better without Harry, and Harry can’t have that happening. And he’ll be so, so lonely, so he doesn’t want that to happen, even if he thinks maybe it’d be for the best. But when Louis brings it up at the end of January, a tiny part of Harry feels relieved. 

“It’s not that I want to be away from you,” he says, guilt written all over his face as he squeezes Harry’s hands. They’re on the couch, turned towards each other. “I just think that’s what we need, you know? I know we’ve only been trying to work on this for less than a month, and I’m not -- this isn’t me giving up, okay? I’m not giving up. But I think that, like, spark between us is gone, and I think this might be how we get it back. I felt more for you when I was in Doncaster than I had in a while, and I thought about you all the time, and I think. . . I think we need that.”

Harry doesn’t know what to say at first, but Louis looks so goddamn guilty that Harry just starts talking without really thinking about it first. “I think I agree, but -- um. How long, do you think?”

“A month, maybe? And then we can sit down and talk about what happens next.”

“If we break up or not, you mean?”

Louis hesitates before nodding. “I guess.”

God, they shouldn’t even be having this conversation. If you would have told either of them that they would get to this point before any of this past year happened, they wouldn’t have believed it, because they were so good. _So_ good. And now they’re just not, now Louis thinks they’ve lost their bloody _spark,_ whatever that means. This is heartbreaking and nauseating and not at all what Harry imagined ‘fixing it’ looked like. 

“I can go to Nick’s, I guess,” he says, feeling sort of numb. Louis squeezes his hands harder and shakes his head. 

“I want you to stay here. I can go stay with the boys for a little bit.”

“I don’t really want to be alone here.”

“Then ask Nick to come here,” Louis suggests, and he sighs. “It’s just -- if we do break up, I’ll probably move in with the boys, anyway. My mum isn’t paying my half of the apartment like yours is and I couldn’t afford to stay here on my own, so I think it just makes sense for you to stay here.”

Harry wouldn’t want to stay here on his own, either, even if he could afford to. He’d probably move in with Nick, if he’d have him. Or maybe -- well, that’s really the only option, isn’t it. Harry just has to fucking pray that it doesn’t come to figuring that out. 

“When are you leaving, then?” Harry asks, a little moodily. He wants to pull his hands away from Louis to be petty but he doesn’t because Louis’ going to leave him soon, for a whole month, and this very well might be the last time they’re close again. 

“I don’t know,” Louis says quietly. “I want to celebrate your birthday with you, though.”

Harry scoffs, and then he does pull his hands away. He grabs the couch pillow and puts it in his lap, starts to fiddle with the edges. “It’s just another stupid day. There’s nothing to celebrate. If you want to go, don’t stay on the account of that.”

“It’s not a stupid day,” Louis tells him, sounding stern. “It’s one of my favorite days, and I’m spending it with you.”

Harry doesn’t know what to feel, let alone what to say, so he doesn’t say anything. He just sits there, jaw clenched, looking away from Louis as guilt heats his body. 

“Hey,” Louis says softly, touching Harry’s cheek so he’ll look at him. He does, and he tries really hard not to glare or cry or anything else stupid. He does lean into Louis’ hand, though, just a bit, and Louis sets his other hand on Harry’s face, too. “This is a decision we’re making together. If you don’t think it’s what is best for us, then you have to tell me that.”

Harry closes his eyes, not wanting to look at Louis this closely. “I just don’t want to lose you completely, and I have a feeling that’s what is going to happen once you get away from me. You’re going to realize how fucked up this last year has been, and you aren’t going to want to come back, and I won’t even get to be mad about it.”

“I don’t think I’m going to want to break up with you,” Louis disagrees. “I think us spending some time apart is going to reaffirm for both of us that is what we want, and we’ll start to figure out what we need, too.”

“Okay,” Harry says, because really, he doesn’t have any room to argue. 

-

On Harry’s birthday, Louis has class in the morning and Harry sits in bed talking to Mr. Helms about the stupid break that he agrees with but hates anyway. It’s not how he wants to spend today, but again, after the meeting is over and he’s left to reflect with the words ‘ _your happiness can’t rely on somebody else_ ,’ he feels better, somehow. 

For the next fun thing to do on his birthday, he gets to write an essay on the ethics surrounding negotiations. As he’s doing that, he finds himself longing for Louis to come home, checking the time every few minutes to see how much longer he’ll be. It’s going to be hell to be apart for a month. 

When his phone lights up with a call, he assumes it’s Louis or Nick. Maybe Zayn. But it’s his mother, and Harry answers it instantly. He has to get better about keeping in contact with them, he knows that. He’s just glad she’s calling. 

“Happy birthday, baby,” she says. 

“Thank you, Mum.”

“How are you, darling? All is good?”

He nods to himself as he answers. “Yeah, I’m alright. What about you?”

“Oh, you know. Can’t complain.” She sighs, and Harry steels himself for what’s to come. A good scolding is probably long overdue, anyway. Instead of that, she says, “Gemma told me that you’re having issues with Louis. I didn’t want to bring it up on your birthday, but seeing as you never call. . .”

Stupid Gemma. He’s not exactly surprised, though. 

“We, uh. . . Yeah. I guess you could say we’re having issues. But, um. We’re going to take a break to try and figure them out.”

“Oh, love. I wish you would talk to me about these sorts of things.”

“I know, I’m sorry,” Harry mumbles. “I’m -- you know. Trying to work on myself, I guess. I’m in therapy now. It’s not you, it’s just. . . I’ve been a bit shit to everyone lately.”

He had no intention of talking about this with her, but either he really doesn’t want to do his homework and this is his way of stalling, or he doesn’t see the point in being so secretive about his struggles anymore. Being open with Louis helped, same with Nick. The least he could do is do the same with his own mum. 

“You’re in therapy?” she asks, surprised. “I didn’t know that. I talked to Louis last week, and he didn’t mention it.”

“I haven’t told him yet,” he says, and the guilt he usually feels about that is soothed by the fact that Louis hadn’t told him he talked to his mum. (And those are totally different things, but whatever.) “But, yeah. It’s relatively new. I’ve gone twice. It’s not that big of a deal.”

“Well, that’s good. But you’re okay, right?”

“Yeah, Mum. Just stressed, probably.”

“Would you tell me if you weren’t?”

That makes Harry shrink in his seat, frowning. Obviously, she knows he isn’t okay. Harry went from talking to her almost every day to blowing her off for months -- nothing about that indicates he’s okay. Sighing, he says, “I mean, I’m not great, Mum, but I’ll be fine. It’s nothing for you to worry about.”

“It’s my job to worry.”

He smiles a bit to himself. “Louis tells me that, too. But really, I’m alright. Or getting there, at least.”

They talk for a little while longer before Anne has to go, saying something about a sale going on at the supermarket. He tells her he loves her, and she says it back, and it’s stupidly reassuring. Of course she loves him, he doesn’t doubt that, but it’s still nice to hear. 

Harry has only been back at his homework for a half hour when Louis comes home with a chocolate cake, vanilla ice cream, and an elephant wearing a party hat. “Still haven’t decided if I bought him for me or for you yet,” Louis says, smiling at him. He sets everything down on the kitchen table before coming over to kiss Harry’s cheek. “Happy birthday, H.”

“Thanks, love.”

Really, Harry’s birthday isn’t anything special. He finishes his essay, replies to Gemma’s, Nick’s, and Zayn’s texts, and cuddles with Louis on the couch as they watch a movie, and it’s only a little tense. They eat cake and ice cream together, and then they go to bed. It’d be better, Harry thinks, if he didn’t have the question of when Louis was planning on leaving him in the back of his head. Harry’s just relieved it was decent; not because it’s his birthday and that deserves to be celebrated, but because it proves that they can manage it. 

-

Louis ends up leaving on the tenth, and Harry cries for an embarrassingly long time. 

He felt okay about it, at first. When he talked to Louis that morning, helped him take a few bags to his car, hugged him tightly goodbye -- he felt okay. Solid. And then he went back to their flat, alone, and completely lost it, hysterically sobbing on the kitchen floor for no real reason. Anguish and an odd sense of relief just clashed in his heart at the same time, and it was too much to deal with at once. 

He’s just relieved Louis didn’t come back realizing he had forgotten something, so he could cry in peace. 

They had decided that it was probably best if they didn’t really talk during their time apart, assuming that it would ruin the whole point of it. _Unless you need me, of course,_ Louis said quickly, frowning in concern. And then that led to the whole slightly-threatening plea from Louis. 

“Don’t do anything stupid when I’m gone,” he said sternly. “I will literally never forgive you or myself if you do something stupid. It’s a break, okay? Nothing permanent. So don’t -- don’t handle it in a way that is extremely permanent, you hear me? If you even think about doing that, I need you to call me and I can come be with you, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Promise me,” Louis said, and Harry promised easily enough because he wasn’t going to do that, kill himself. Not now, and hopefully not ever. He likes to write November off as a meltdown of sorts, as if he didn’t plan it for weeks on end. 

Eventually, Harry picks himself up off the floor and drags himself to their bedroom, and he continues crying there for a bit. It feels cathartic, almost. Crying over Louis. He’s cried over a lot of things, and surely he’s cried over Louis before, but somehow, this still feels like the first time. 

He’s resorted to cuddling the stupid elephant plushie Louis got him when there’s a knock on the front door. He jolts up in bed, choking on a sob. God, if that’s Louis -- he needs to get his shit together. He wipes his eyes and nose and hurries to the bathroom to splash over his face. There’s another knock, and Harry quickly goes to answer the door. 

What if it’s Louis, realizing he doesn’t want to do this? What if -- that’d be like a movie-moment, Louis coming back with his luggage and saying he doesn’t want to leave after all. But when Harry opens the door, it’s just Nick with a bottle of white wine. 

“Don’t look so sad to see me,” he says, pushing his way in. Harry stares at him for a few moments, wondering what the hell he’s doing here. And why he’s already getting comfortable on Harry’s couch. 

“Did we have plans or something?” Harry asks, shutting the door. He grabs two wine glasses, because if Nick is here, then he might as well steal his wine. He sits down next to Nick on the couch. 

“No. Louis texted me, asked me come stay with you.”

“What about Pig?”

“Shipped her off to a friend’s for a bit. I’ll stay with you for a week or two.”

Harry doesn’t comment on the fact that him being left out of this decision making is a little odd. He doesn’t want to be alone. 

“Louis told me not to let you drink too much, but I figured wine wouldn’t kill you.”

“Let’s find out,” Harry mumbles, and he grabs the wine bottle from Nick. 

(It doesn’t kill him, but he does get very, very drunk.)

-

Nick stays at Harry’s flat for thirteen days, and he only leaves because Pig apparently keeps eating Nick’s mate’s socks. Nick says he can stay at his flat instead, but Harry sort of wants to be alone, which is mad. Completely, absolutely batshit. Feeling lonely and alienated is what caused all of this. 

For the two weeks that Nick does stay, they have their fair share of wine, Harry whines his way into getting Nick to do a lot of his assignments for him, there’s a fair share of tears and, one night when they were particularly sloshed, a pathetic cuddle on the living room floor. 

Harry is heartbroken, truly. He wants Louis back so badly, he wants to fix this more than anything. It would have been easier if they had done this before they started talking a little bit more again -- Harry keeps wanting to tell him something and having to talk himself out of texting him. There are some days that Harry resents this stupid break and questions its helpfulness, and there are other days, the days where the ache for Louis is so bad that it hurts, that he understands its purpose. 

Harry doesn’t know if it’s a coincidence or not that Zayn texts Harry the night Nick goes back home. The text reads, _Coffee soon?_ It annoys Harry, a bit, so he doesn’t text him back, but an hour later Zayn texts him again. _Don’t pretend like you’re not wondering how Louis is. I’ll tell you if you get coffee with me._

Manipulative, that’s what it is, but it works. He’s dying to know if Louis is as lost as he is, or if he’s unaffected by all of this. A small part of him wonders if he’s sleeping with anyone else; they didn’t talk about that, if they could sleep with other people during the break, so Harry’s wondering if Louis took the liberty to go ahead and do it. 

_Fine. Tomorrow after 12?_

_Sure. I’ll be at the starbucks on campus at 12. See u there mate._

Harry scowls at the text, even though he wants to see Zayn, anyway. He misses him, and Mr. Helms tells Harry that he has to ‘go out of his comfort zones’ if he wants to solve anything. Harry knows he can’t keep ignoring Zayn forever and still want to be his friend.

The following day, Harry wakes up nauseous. It’s not the first morning that he’s felt like that waking up, but it is the first morning that it isn’t caused by a hangover. Seeing Zayn is nerve-wrecking enough; getting an update on Louis just adds to it. He can hardly focus during his advocacy class, which gets out later than normal, so it’s thirty minutes past twelve when Harry makes it to the coffee shop. He sees Zayn sitting there before Zayn sees him, and with a heavy sigh, he pushes open the door and heads in. 

“Thought you weren’t going to show,” Zayn says dryly, looking up from his phone. 

Harry smiles thinly. God, he’s nervous. It’s not normal to be this nervous, he’s pretty sure. “Yeah, sorry. My class ran late. I’m, um. Here now.”

“Cool. What do you want to drink?”

“Oh, um, I’m good.” He sits down at the table across from Zayn, folding his hands under the table nervously. He goes back and forth between being too nervous to look at Zayn and feeling more awkward for not looking at him. 

Zayn gives him a look. “Are you still not eating well?”

“Um, maybe don’t do that,” Harry says, confused. “You don’t know about my issues, not well enough to feel so comfortable talking about them. Just go get whatever you want, I’ll wait.”

“Okay,” Zayn says, shrugging. He stands up and leaves, and Harry waits, fumbling with his fingers and shaking his leg up and down. 

Zayn used to live with him. Used to lay on top of him to be annoying and slap his ass and cry on his shoulder about life. And now Harry feels like he’s squirming out of his skin just from having coffee with him. 

When Zayn returns, he has two coffees in his hand and sets one down in front of Harry. “Texted Louis. He said that’s what you usually order.”

Being mad at him seems justified, but the drink gives him something to do with his hands, now, so all he does is roll his eyes a little as he thanks him and accepts the drink. 

“So,” Harry starts, staring at the whip cream topping his drink. “Louis knows we’re meeting?”

“Uh, yeah. Wasn’t supposed to be a secret.”

Harry shrugs. “I just didn’t know you told him.” There’s a small pause, and then, weakly, Harry asks, “Does he hate me?”

“No. Really, Harry, he doesn’t. He misses you like mad.”

Something in Harry’s chest settles, and he lets out a long breath. “Oh.”

“Yeah,” Zayn says, snorting at him. “You miss him, too, I’m assuming?”

Harry nods. 

“You can’t hurt him again,” Zayn says intensely, and Harry looks up, frowning. So Zayn is yet again only reaching out to him for Louis’ benefit. Harry wonders if it was always like this and he just hadn’t realized. “I’m serious, H. You were a wreck, I get that. But he was too.”

“I never _wanted_ to hurt him. I didn’t mean to. It all just -- happened.”

“Don’t let it happen again,” Zayn says, not sympathetic at all. 

“Yeah, cheers. It’s that easy, isn’t it?”

Zayn doesn’t look impressed. “I’m just saying.”

“Do you even care that I almost died?” Harry spits out, louder than he means to. He lowers his voice. “I know that it was my decision, and I’m not using it as, like, a weapon, but what the _fuck,_ Zayn. Don’t act so cold to me. I’m _trying_.”

“I _know_ that,” he snaps back. But then, “Maybe I don’t know that, because all you’ve seem to have done is drive Louis away further.”

Harry pulls back like he’s been slapped. 

“I nearly failed out of uni, and I pulled it together last minute,” Harry seethes, narrowing his eyes at him. “I fixed my friendship with Nick. I told Louis and Nick something I swore I wasn’t going to tell anybody. I called my mum and am starting to fix it with her. I’m in fucking therapy, for fuck’s sake. So, have you ever maybe thought that I’m not the only fucking problem here? Because I’ve fixed almost every facet of my life except expect us, and I’m starting to think that’s not entirely my fault.”

“You haven’t reached out to Liam or Niall,” Zayn points out coolly, but it’s obvious that he doesn’t like Harry flipping the blame onto him. 

“Because _you’re_ their friend, not me. If you don’t like me, they won’t either. I was a part of that friend group before, I know how your loyalty works.”

Zayn stares at him for a few heavy seconds, and Harry doesn’t lose his nerve. He keeps his glare steady -- he isn’t going to keep blaming himself for this anymore. 

“You said horrible things to me,” Zayn says, and for the first time, he sounds human. 

“That I don’t even remember,” Harry argues. “That I’ve apologized for. That I will continue to apologize for. That I said at one of the worst moments of my life and I obviously don’t mean.”

Zayn drops his gaze to the table. “Wow, that was, like, five excuses in a row. Pretty impressive there, mate.”

“What else do you want from me?” Harry asks. Genuinely, he wants to know. If Louis can start to forgive him, then he doesn’t understand why Zayn can’t. Or won’t. 

“For you to not break Louis’ heart,” Zayn says simply, and Harry sighs. This really is all about Louis for him -- he doesn’t care about Harry anymore. Any part of him that does care about Harry is simply because he cares about Louis and Louis cares about him. 

“Years of friendship got ruined by one bad night,” Harry whispers, shaking his head. “One awful, awful night, I get that, but I guess I didn’t understand before all of this how weak our bond was.”

He stands, then, not wanting to fight about this anymore. There’s no point in rehashing this over and over again. As he turns away, Zayn says, “You’re just going to hurt us again.” 

Harry pauses, but he doesn’t turn around.

“You’re a fucking ticking time bomb, mate,” he continues, sounding desperate to be understood. “I’m not getting close to that again. I’m sorry that you’re struggling, I really am, but I don’t think I have to choose to be around you when you explode again. Louis and Nick might be okay with that, but I’m not.”

It hurts more than Harry would like to admit. He’s pretty sure that isn’t true, but it could be. How could he know? Maybe Zayn’s right; maybe the second Harry shoves his way back into everybody’s life, it’ll be too much and he’ll get vicious again. 

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, mate,” Harry says, and then he leaves. 

-

“So,” Mr. Helms says in a way that indicates he wants to move onto a new subject. Apparently, bitching about Zayn for twenty-five minutes straight isn’t a productive use of their time. Today, Harry’s sitting at the kitchen table, since there’s no reason to hide away in his room to do this when he’s all alone. “I’ve been seeing you for a little while now, and I noticed we have yet to talk about the possibility of you being placed on medication.”

Harry stares at him through the screen, a little taken aback, because he’s right -- they haven’t talked about that yet. It hasn’t even been brought up once. Harry didn’t realize anything was that wrong with him. 

He says as much, and Mr. Helms laughs. “No, Harry. Nothing’s _wrong_ with you. Just. . . some things can be improved, and I think an antidepressant could help with those improvements.”

“Okay,” he says stiffly, unsure of what to feel right now. 

“It’s a personal decision,” Mr. Helms tells him. “I’m not telling you that you have to do it, I’m just recommending it.”

“What. . . what would that do for me?”

“It could do a lot of things. Help with your mood, your sleep, your appetite, your concentration -- there’s a variety of effects of antidepressants.”

“And they can also do the opposite of what you just said, right?”

He remembers sitting on the couch with Louis, quizzing him with flashcards for an upcoming pharmacology test. Some medications can leave you more fucked up than you were to begin with. 

“Yes, that’s a possibility,” he says hesitantly. “But Harry, I anticipate seeing you for at least a little while, so I can help guide you through this process. If one medication isn’t the right match, then we can move onto a different one. This about helping you, not hurting you. I don’t want this to seem scary.”

“What do you want to give me?”

He shrugs. “Lexapro is common. I can give you some alternatives to that, if you’d like, or we can start there.”

Harry thinks hard for at least a minute. The pros outweigh the cons, he’s pretty sure, but he wants Louis’ opinion. Louis’ almost a nurse, and Louis’ his boyfriend, and Louis wants him to get better. Harry needs his guidance in this. “Okay,” he agrees, only a little reluctantly. “I -- what do I have to do, then?”

“I can write out a prescription for you and you can pick it up at the campus’ clinic, if that works for you.”

“Sure, yeah. I can pick it up whenever.”

There’s a small pause before Mr. Helms says, “You seem apprehensive.”

“I’m not. Really. I’ll try it out. Loads of people are antidepressants.” He hesitates. “Right?”

He nods, smiling. “I’m sure there are people in your life that are on them and you don’t even know.”

Nobody can say he isn’t trying if he goes on medication. He can add that to his attempts at making amends. He really does just want everything to go back to how it was, and he’ll do anything to get that. 

Harry only waits ten minutes after his appointment before calling Louis. There’s no point in waiting, and he wants to talk to Louis. So badly; he misses him so much, and now he has an excuse to reach out and break their no-contact rule. It’s already been three weeks now, and Harry can’t stand it anymore. 

“Hey,” Louis answers, sounding surprised. “Hey, you okay?”

“Yeah. ‘M fine. I just wanted to ask you something.”

It feels awkward, not acknowledging the fact that this isn't natural. That they haven’t spoken to each in three weeks, and Harry calling him like this is a little weird. But he doesn’t want it to be a big deal, so he doesn’t make it one. 

“Okay, hold on. Let me go to the back room.” There’s some shuffling, and then a door clicking. “Okay. What’s up?”

“Well,” he starts, realizing only know that he hasn’t told Louis about his therapist yet. And then he realizes that there’s no way Zayn didn’t tell him, so he rolls his eyes and continues. “I’ve been seeing a therapist for a little while.”

“Yeah, I know. Zayn told me. That’s good, Harry, really. I’m proud of you.”

“Thanks,” Harry mumbles awkwardly. “But, um. He wants to put me on an antidepressant. Lexapro, I think he said? I have to pick up the prescription, but like. . . I dunno. Wanted your input, I guess. You know more about this stuff than I do.”

“I think it’s a good idea. Just, if you start it before I’m back, make sure you pay attention to how you’re feeling, okay? Write it down if you have to.”

Harry closes his eyes, feeling euphoric from those few simple words: _before I’m back._ Louis’ coming home, he wants to, and that’s a huge fucking relief. Harry’s pretty sure he couldn’t have sat down with him and had a talk without knowing for sure Louis wanted to come back. 

“Okay,” he says, not wanting Louis to regret it or take it back. “Okay, thanks.”

He doesn’t want to hang up, even though that’s all he really wanted to ask about. It doesn’t seem like Louis does, either. 

“I was thinking we could meet up sometime next week to talk about things.” Louis tells him. “Um, Wednesday? Neither of us are busy in the morning.”

“Yeah, sure. Do you want to do it at our flat, or. . .?”

“That’s fine. I’ll come over at ten.”

Jesus, Louis’ going to be back home in six fucking days. That’s -- shit, everything aches for him, and he envies the day it doesn’t have to anymore. 

“I love you,” Louis whispers, sounding a little insecure about it. Harry’s face crumples as he tries not to cry at that. He doesn’t deserve Louis, he really doesn’t. 

“I love you, too,” he says. He’s happy his voice doesn’t shake, that he doesn’t show Louis that he’s still weak. Which is a stupid thing to think; crying over this doesn’t mean he’s weak, it means he’s human. 

-

Louis’ mum calls Harry the morning Louis is due at the flat. Exactly an hour before, actually, while Harry’s standing in the mirror and wondering if the pants he picked out are too baggy on him. He sees the phone light up out of the corner of his eye, and he assumes it’s Louis. When he sees it’s Jay, he winces, debates not answering and then realizes that would ruin any chance of getting back on her good side, and then he answers. 

“Hi,” he says, sitting on the edge of the bed. His heart in his fucking stomach, and he bites down on his bottom lip. There’s only one other person who could rip him a new one as good as Zayn did, and it’s her. 

“I’m surprised you answered,” she says, voice cool. The worst part is, she won’t even yell at him. She doesn’t have to, not when Harry has messed up so badly. 

Harry thinks of the unopened bottle of Lexapro in the bathroom cabinet, sitting in the exact same place his old pain pills used to. She can be mad, and she has every right to be, but he knows that he’s trying. 

“I’m surprised you called,” he replies. “I, um. Should’ve called you a lot sooner, I know that. I’m sorry. For everything, really.”

She lets out a quiet exhale. “Look, love. I don’t know what you’ve done to convince Louis to forgive you, but congrats, you’ve done it. So you better not go and mess it up, okay? Or I’ll be forced to drive to London and have a talk with you that’s much less nice than this one.”

“I won’t. I promise.”

“You were a good kid,” she says, and the word _were_ stings. “I thought you were exactly what Louis needed, exactly the type of person that could get him to settle down. I thought you were going to be it for him, and that you’d be the father of my grandchildren. And I felt stupid for thinking back, but considering you’ve managed to turn this around -- maybe I was right.”

“I bloody hope you are,” he says, letting out a tense laugh. “I want that, too. I want -- God, you have to know that I never meant to hurt him. Even when. . . even when I feel like I didn’t know myself, I knew that I loved him.”

“Because I raised a lovely son. It’d be impossible not to.”

Harry smiles to himself. He shouldn’t have been so quick to think that she’d chew him out. She’s tough, not cruel. 

“Yeah, you did. Thanks for that.”

“So did Anne,” she says. “And I’ve talked to her. More than you have lately, it seems. You’re breaking that woman’s heart.”

“I know. I know, I’m sorry. I’m trying to talk to her more. I didn’t mean to hurt anybody.” He sighs. “Which sounds stupid now, and maybe that was my intention, hurting everybody as badly as I was hurting, but I can tell you that I regret that now. Trust me, I know how badly I screwed up. Zayn can’t even stand me anymore.”

“Because he won’t give you a second chance until you prove to him that you won’t hurt Louis again. I’m sort of sitting in the same spot.”

“Yeah, I get that. . . I really am sorry, though.”

“I know you are. Louis tells me as much, too. Just fix it, okay? Treat him the way he deserves to be treated. He’s a bloody catch, my son. Treat him as such.”

“I will,” he says. “I won’t let myself screw this up again, I swear it.”

“I know you won’t. You’re too smart to do something as stupid as that.”

After she’s let him go and Harry is sitting there, thinking, he realizes that was her way of giving him a pep talk. Of course she didn’t have to do that, but he’s so fucking thankful that she did. 

Twenty minutes later, Harry is back standing in the mirror and frowning at the shirt he’s got on. He doesn’t like it, but he hasn’t liked any of the last fifteen shirts he’s put on. Louis’ not going to care about what he’s wearing -- Harry’s just being stupid at this point -- but he still finds himself going back to the drawers to find something else. 

He doesn’t even hear Louis get in, somehow, so he’s beyond startled when Louis says from behind him, “You’re still a little skinny, babe.”

“Jesus, Louis,” Harry mumbles, and he grabs the nearest shirt and shoves it on over his head. He turns around once he has his shirt on, and he squints at Louis’ choice of a baggy t-shirt and penguin pajama bottoms. He knew he was being stupid.

“I didn’t hear you come in,” he says. “And you’re early.”

Louis leans against the doorframe and shrugs. “It’s my home, too. No such thing as early when it’s my flat.”

“Fair enough,” Harry says, feeling a little breathless. Yet again, Louis is committing to staying here. _With_ Harry. He wants to go at this again, and Harry will continue to be surprised by that. 

“I got us some coffees and a few donuts from that bakery near the boys,” he says, motioning behind him, and Harry nods. He shuts the drawer he was digging in and heads to the doorway. Louis doesn’t move, though, and when he’s close enough, Louis grabs his hand. 

“I want to do this,” he says, voice low and eyes wide. “Do you want to, too?”

Harry nods immediately. “Yes, more than anything.”

Louis smiles before standing on his tip-toes and planting a kiss on his lips. It’s unexpected and nice, so nice, even if it’s over too soon. When Louis pulls back, squeezing his hand, Harry opens his eyes slowly, and he realizes that’s the first time in a while that he’s kissed Louis and didn’t feel like it was wrong. At that realization, he bends down, almost urgently, and kisses him again. Louis indulges him for a minute, maybe more, before he pulls away again. His eyes have gone a little glossy now, his lips a little red. Harry can’t remember the last time he actually craves sex -- really craved it, not just being blindly horny because he’s young and it’s been a while. Now, though, he would drop to his knees the second Louis asked him to. 

“We’re supposed to talk,” Louis says, smiling at him. “A long, mature discussion like the proper adults we are.”

“Okay,” Harry agrees, a little dumbly. He lets himself be tugged into the kitchen, and he accepts the coffee Louis hands him. They sit at the table across from each other, and it’s uncomfortably close to how it was when Harry told him the truth. But now there’s a smile on Louis’ face that just won’t go away and a box of donuts in between them, so maybe it’s not all that bad. 

Louis doesn’t talk right away, and it takes Harry too long to realize that it’s because he wants Harry to start the conversation. 

“Um,” he says, shifting in his seat. “What are we supposed to be talking about, exactly?”

Louis shrugs a shoulder. “Whatever you want. Whatever you need to tell me that will prevent us from having to do this all over again. No secrets.”

“I never cheated on you,” Harry says defensively, convinced that’s what Louis’ getting at. What other secrets could Louis be referring to? But judging by Louis’ face, he missed the mark. “Sorry,” he mumbles, looking down at his coffee. “I just don’t like that you thought that before. I would never do that.”

“Not even with Nick?” Louis asks, but he’s smiling a bit, showing that he doesn’t actually mean it. Harry answers seriously anyway. 

“Not with Nick, not with anyone. I slept in his bed a few times, but I don’t think that is a big deal.”

Louis shakes his head. “No, of course it isn’t. I’ve been sleeping next to Niall for the last month, anyway.”

Harry’s heart aches at the thought. “I really did miss you. So much. More than I thought I would. I thought that I’d, like, want you back and miss you, obviously, but God, I’ve fucking _missed_ you, Louis. Like, really, really missed you.”

“Me too.”

“And your mum called me,” he says, because that’s probably something Louis would like to know. “This morning. She, um. Was actually very nice, considering everything. She has faith that I won’t fuck it up a second time.”

The more and more he says that, the more and more he doesn’t like it. The second time, second chances -- he’s fucked up far more than twice. Louis has given him way more than two chances. But he supposes it gets the message across -- he won’t mess up _this_ chance, no matter what number they’re at by now. 

“Because she loves you like a son,” Louis says, nodding. “She trusts me. If I think you’re worth forgiving, then she does, too.”

Harry just nods, not quite sure how to respond to that. 

“Now, tell me a bit about therapy, yeah?”

Harry feels himself shrink at that, a bit. For no real reason; he supposes the slight sting of shame he feels surrounding therapy is from society or something, because it doesn’t feel like his own. “I started going before you left,” he starts. “Uh, I do, like, Zoom calls? On the computer. So I can stay home.”

“Smart,” Louis says, and he reaches for a donut from the box. He’s probably trying to keep this conversation casual. 

“He, umm. His name is Mr. Helms. He’s nice. Bit bored of me complaining about Zayn, though, I think.”

Louis laughs at that. “I’m a bit bored of hearing Zayn complain about _you_.” His smile slips a bit and he shrugs. “The only person more pompous than you is Zayn, so. I’m not surprised you two aren’t so quick in rekindling your friendship.” He looks at Harry. “And that was a joke, by the way. You aren’t pompous, just. . .”

“Stubborn? Narrow-minded? Maybe just a little bit pompous?”

Louis shakes his head. “Insecure,” he says. “You’re both a little insecure. Sensitive, maybe. Always have been.”

“He said I was a ticking time bomb.”

Louis frowns. “That’s not true. That’s -- I’ve practically begged him to lay off, and he won’t. I don’t get it.”

“He doesn’t want me to hurt you again,” Harry says quietly. “Your mum said he won’t forgive me until me and you are in a good place again. Which. . . I don’t know. I get it, but at the same time, I don’t think it’s very fair.”

“If it makes you feel any better, Niall and Liam aren’t being such hardasses about it anymore,” Louis tells him. He looks a little guilty, probably thinking that his shit-talking is what drove them away. It’s not true. “We could go somewhere, all of us. Even Zayn. He’d probably be good.” He breaks off a piece of his donut before sighing. “While we’re being honest,” he says, “I don’t like your drinking habits.”

Harry pulls back, confused. “I haven’t drank in, like, two weeks. And before that -- I don’t know. I drink with Nick sometimes, but it’s not like I’m getting smashed every day.”

“You drink when you’re around other people,” Louis says. “At least, you did before. A lot. We couldn’t go anywhere without you getting completely hammered.”

“I’m a social drinker.”

Louis gives him an unimpressed look. “Said every alcoholic literally ever.”

“I’m not a bloody alcoholic, Louis.”

“No, you’re not,” Louis agrees. “Just. . . a little dependent, maybe. I don’t know. You don’t have to agree with me, I’m not saying you have, like, an imminent problem. We’re just being honest. And, if I’m being honest, I think if I took you anywhere right now, you’d want a drink. Or five or six.”

“Okay, that’s not necessarily wrong.” He thinks for a second before adopting his own guilty look. “Can I be honest, then?”

Louis nods. “Whole point of this, yeah.”

Carefully, so, so carefully, he says, “I think. . . I think I didn’t get the help I needed from anybody who was maybe supposed to give it.” He drops his eyes to the table, feeling nervous and immediately regretting saying it. But they’re being honest. If Harry keeps this inside forever, then it’ll fester, and neither of them want that. 

“You feel let down,” Louis says slowly, and Harry shrugs. 

“I don’t know. Not let down, I wouldn’t say, just. . . maybe a little abandoned.” He cringes at the word. “No, not abandoned, just, like. Neglected.” Again, the word sounds too harsh, but before he tries to correct it again, Louis speaks. 

“I think you’re right,” he says, “but at the same time, I want you to know that I was so hurt and confused that I didn’t know what to feel other than angry. _I_ felt abandoned. Neglected. And I always convinced myself there was nothing serious going on with you; I’d tell myself I was taking my work home with me or that I was making excuses for you or that I was just making it up. I don’t know, love, but I can tell you that I would have never forgiven myself if you would have taken your life and I hadn’t done a bloody thing to stop it.”

“It’s so fucking embarrassing,” he mutters, setting his forehead on his hand. He resents talking about this. Thinking about it, even. He can talk about how shitty he was and how shitty he felt, but not -- that. It’s humiliating.

“What, you almost killing yourself?” Louis asks in disbelief. “That’s not something to feel embarrassed about, Harry. Obviously you didn’t _want_ to feel that way.”

“It was dramatic.”

“It felt like the only thing you could do at the time. You told me you thought about it for weeks, and that doesn’t sound like some spur of the moment decision made to make a point. Don’t -- God, please don’t feel like that’s something you have to feel ashamed about. I’m not ashamed of you because of it. Neither is Nick.”

Maybe it is wrong to minimize the pain he felt at the time -- he still remembers it like a fresh wound, and nothing about how he felt was exaggerated. 

“I worked in an emergency room for my first semester of clinicals,” Louis reminds. “I’ve seen suicidal people before. I’ve seen people who couldn’t stop themselves the way that you fortunately could. I will never feel ashamed of you for that, and you should try and not be so hard on yourself. Especially for that.”

Harry keeps staring down at the table, trying to figure out the right things to say right now. Thinking too hard defeats the purpose of this, but still. Harry doesn’t want this to turn into a pity-party for him. 

“I really am sorry,” he says. “For almost doing that to you. It would’ve traumatized you, probably. I don’t even think I thought about how, like. . . how hard it would be to find me like that. I was just thinking about myself.”

“You weren’t thinking clearly.”

The way he says it so quickly and with a little bit of restraint in his voice tells Harry that he doesn’t want to even think about that. So, Harry changes topics.

“I haven’t taken my medication yet,” he says, looking up. Louis is biting on the end of his straw, and he looks exhausted. “I wanted to wait for you.”

“Awfully sure I was coming back,” Louis says, teasing. It feels amazing, doing this again. Joking. Talking. Just being around each other. Harry missed this more than he’s missed anything before. “But yeah. That’s okay. You can start it whenever.”

Harry nods, and then a comfortable silence falls between them. That’s unheard of with them recently -- silence that isn’t suffocating, unbearable, that makes him squirm. He busies his hands with drinking coffee and eating one of the donuts, and once five minutes have passed, Harry looks up again. 

“Can we be done now?” he asks, and it makes Louis smile. 

“Yeah, just -- um. One quick question.” He sits up in his chair straighter and shrugs, looking down at his fingers. “I don’t think it’d be right to have a talk like this without asking if you’ve felt suicidal recently. Like, at all. I think. . . I think I’d like to know that.”

Harry could lie, or he could tell the truth. It’s been easier to choose honesty lately. “When I stayed at Nick’s that one night after we fought, um. I thought about it. But, like. I wasn’t going to do it, it’s not like that.”

He’s expecting this to be some giant deal that they have to discuss at length, but instead, Louis just nods slowly and says okay. Harry’s surprised. 

“Okay?”

“Thanks for being honest with me,” Louis says, and then he stands and comes over to kiss Harry. He has his hands on Harry’s cheeks, and Harry stands so they’re at an easier angle. Harry doesn’t know if Louis kissed him with the intention of starting something, but it doesn’t matter what his initial intention was, because almost immediately, it becomes obvious that’s what is going to happen. With the way they’re touching each other, the way they’re kissing -- fervent and demanding and like they never want to stop -- it only takes a minute, maybe two, for Harry to start walking them towards the room and for Louis to grab for the bottom of Harry’s shirt. 

It’s terrifying; of course it is. They haven’t done this is so bloody long, and things are so different between them now. Harry feels like he’s shed every layer of skin ten times over in the last half-year or so, and he has no idea if Louis’ going to like him the same. 

The slight awkwardness and uncertainty between them normally doesn’t translate to this, Harry quickly finds out. There’s nothing awkward or uncertain about how Louis blindly reaches for the lube and a condom, or how he yanks down Harry’s bottoms, or how Harry makes marks all over Louis’ body like he never stopped. 

“God, okay, bitey,” Louis says, a little breathlessly, as Harry digs his teeth into Louis’ shoulder, scraping his teeth over the skin not so gently. But Louis’ not gentle, either; he pushes all the way inside of Harry without a break like it hasn’t been ages since Harry’s been fucked, and his thrusts are almost brutal, and there will most definitely be bruises on Harry’s hips later on from how hard Louis’ fingers are digging into him. 

It’s over quickly, but neither of them expected the other to last very long when it’s been months since either of them have done anything even close to that. Afterwards, when they’re laying in bed under the sheets, Harry runs his fingers over his hips where the skin is sore and Louis traces the marks Harry made on his neck, like they’re both trying to remind themselves that they really did just happen. 

-

The following day, Harry wakes up feeling the best he has in ages. Sore, too, because they had sex again last night. The second time was less intense and a little more loving -- they had already made their marks on each other, already marked their territory as if to say they weren’t going anywhere. Neither of them did anything stupid like cry, even though Harry felt a little choked up by the end. 

Harry wakes up alone, but when he checks the clock, he sees that it’s too early for Louis to have left for his Thursday class yet. He gets out of bed, wincing slightly, and finds Louis in the kitchen a few minutes later. Louis grins at him when he sees him, and Harry comes over to him, feeling a little shy for some reason. Louis brings him closer by wrapping an arm around his waist, and Harry steadies himself by setting his hands on Louis’ shoulders. He’s wearing his scrubs, and Harry’s slight timidness is replaced by smugness when he sees some bruises peeking out. 

“You’re not allowed to be so fucking bitey anymore,” Louis says pointedly, but he doesn’t look unhappy. Harry thumbs over one of the marks and Louis bats his hand away. “I couldn’t find any of your concealer to cover it up. Do you still have one?”

“It’ll be too pale for you. Should just leave them.”

Louis pinches Harry’s side. “Go get it for me. I don’t need everyone knowing I had sex last night.”

Harry goes to leave, but before he can, Louis pulls him in for a kiss, almost like he can’t resist doing it. And it’s. . . Harry’s chest stutters and he can’t help but smile. There’s a long way ahead of them, sure, but this feels like an incredibly nice start. 

-

-

Saturdays have become designated date nights. Out to the movies, a walk through the city, dinner, shopping, staying in and watching a slew of episodes from a trashy reality TV -- whatever it is, it’s date night. It’s for them and them only, aside from that time Louis had to cancel because Liam was at some bar completely trashed and needed someone to pick him up. They dress nice for each other, and they hold hands everywhere they go, and they have fun enjoying each other’s company. 

It’s been a month and a half since he started taking his antidepressants, he’s gained at least six pounds during that time (he’s still not sure if that’s related to the pills or not), and only recently has he really started to feel like they’re actually doing their job. He feels more leveled out, a bit, a little less foggy and a lot more motivated. Louis’ so proud of him for actually keeping up with the medication in a way that shows he was sure Harry would get bored of it and quit. Taking the pill every night before bed serves as a reminder that, no matter how bad or good the day was, he’s trying every day to make it even better. 

His mum asks about it nearly every time she calls him -- _are you still taking it? Is it helping you? Are you sure you’re okay?_ He doesn’t mind it, though, not really. She just wants to feel included in his life. He’s been better about talking to his family, and him and his mum are nearly back to the point of at least texting every day. She didn’t ask for an explanation for the last year, but he gave her a brief summary of it anyway: he was going through some issues, he’s getting the help he needs, and he won’t ever block her out of his life again. She’s kind to him about it; she’s always been a little soft on him, Gemma said, but even Gemma has since come around to understand that Harry is doing what he’s supposed to in picking up the pieces of the mess he created. 

Some days are still a little messy. Some days, he’s irritable or sad or exhausted without any real reason as to why. It’s getting better over time, it really is, but it’s like Louis always says: the depression he has been diagnosed with won’t just go away because he wants it to, although he can combat it by doing things to keep himself in check, like talking to people and keeping his mind busy and going to therapy and taking his meds. It spreads like a wildfire when he isn’t taking care of himself, but when he’s mindful of it, usually it’s only smoke. 

Harry is just glad he has Louis back. Fully, completely, one-hundred back. In the beginning, it wasn’t all frenzied sex and grins -- there was a lot of hard work that went into getting them to the good place that they are now. Over time, though, it started to really feel like they were forgiving each other for every fight they never resolved and every night they spent wanting to tell each other something but not feeling able to. The good days are starting to outnumber the bad ones again, and Harry is just so fucking relieved that Louis had faith -- strong, blind, unwavering faith -- in him and stuck around. 

-

“Do you have plans over spring break?” Louis asks him towards the middle of April. They’re cuddled up on the couch, and Harry’s only half-awake and hardly paying attention to the movie, no matter how many times he mumbles to Louis that he’s still awake. He snuggles closer behind Louis and presses his face to the curve of Louis’ shoulder. 

“Mmm, yeah, I think I have, like, three essays to write.”

Louis scoffs. “ _Fun_ plans, I meant.”

“No. Don’t think so.”

“We should go somewhere,” Louis says, shifting towards him. “Like, to your mum’s or something. Or my mum’s.”

Harry opens his eyes, and Louis looks dead serious. “I can talk to my mum,” he says tiredly before dropping a kiss to Louis’ shoulder. “She probably wouldn’t mind having us around.”

“You can’t be scared of my mum forever, Haz.”

“Shh,” Harry whispers, closing his eyes again. “Movie’s on.”

Louis snorts at him and responds by turning towards him completely, back towards the TV. He pulls Harry close to his chest, and he runs his fingers through Harry’s hair until he’s fast asleep.

-

The plans get sorted, and Harry and Louis make the drive to Holmes Chapel on a Saturday morning. They’ll come back Monday night so Harry has some time to finish up school work he has to complete before the break ends. Louis volunteers to drive there, so Harry will take over driving on the way back. 

As Harry sits in the passenger’s seat, staring out the window and listening to Louis hum quietly to the song playing on the radio, he remembers how awkward it was during the short drive to the boys’ flat all those months ago. That fifteen minute drive felt like it would never end and they were both on edge, and now here they are, voluntarily getting into a car together for a three hour drive. 

You could say it’s a nice change of pace. 

About halfway through the drive, they stop for gas. Louis fills the tank while Harry goes inside and buys them snacks, and when he gets back out to the car, Louis smiles at him like it’s been days since he saw him last. 

“Gemma just texted me,” Louis tells him as Harry buckles. He leans over to press a quick kiss to his cheek, and Harry moves into the touch.

“Yeah? What’d she say?”

Gemma has pretty much forgiven Harry, although there are still some traces of hard feelings in their relationship. It’s okay, that’s to be expected. Harry can’t blame her for that. 

“She says your mum is convinced we’re either coming to tell her that we’re breaking up or getting married,” Louis says, and he shrugs. “Like I would come _with_ you to tell her we’re breaking up.”

Harry snorts, shaking his head. He’s glad that one of those scenarios is more likely than the other now. 

It’s not until they’re about a half hour away from home (and Louis doesn’t have to ask for directions, not even once) that Harry starts to get nervous about seeing his mum again after so long. They’ve talked, sure, but seeing her in person is different. She can’t hide her disappointment as easily if she wasn’t telling the truth about forgiving him. But he pushes it down, knowing that’s stupid. And when they get home, and Louis grabs his hand as they walk to the door, the anxiety picks back up. It’s immediately cancelled out when the door opens and Anne immediately pulls him in for a tight, warm hug. 

“You’ve gotten taller,” she says, and he laughs. 

“I stopped growing at, like, sixteen.”

She shakes her head. “I’m telling you, you’ve grown.” She releases him to grab his face and kiss his forehead before turning to Louis and hugging him, too. “I’m sorry if my son’s given you any trouble,” she says, and Harry makes a face. 

“Oh, cheers, Mum.”

“Oh, hush. Go inside and say hi to your sister.”

Harry listens, exchanging a teasing look with Louis over his mum’s shoulder as he does. He stops to say hello to a nearby cat as he comes in, and then he finds his sister in the kitchen, pouring a glass of wine. 

“It’s a bit early for that, no?” he asks, only kidding. Yeah, two in the afternoon is a little early, but hey, a little wine never hurt anybody. She scoffs at him. 

“Not when you’re here,” she says, although there’s no anger in her words. She motions for him to come closer so he does, and she hugs him, too. “Was slightly convinced you’d come here looking like a mess.”

“Nope.”

“Not any more than usual, anyway.”

He laughs, and she echoes the sound. 

-

Spending time back home feels like a part of him is fully cemented into place again. There are no digs or sarcastic comments thrown his way the entire time; the four of them and Robin, when he comes home from work, just spend quality time together, all enjoying each other’s company in a way that feels natural and well-deserved. Harry gets drunk on wine with his sister both nights they’re there, and he cooks dinner with his mum, and he walks around town with Louis, showing him all the little nooks and crannies of the village like he hasn’t already shown them to Louis before. It feels different this time. 

On Monday evening, Harry drives back home feeling more secure and loved than he has in a long time. It’s one thing to know he’s loved by people, and it’s one thing to actually feel it -- to see their smiles and feel their hugs. He’s got Louis back, Nick, his family -- really, the only piece of him that’s still missing his friends. Zayn hasn’t made another attempt to talk to him since Louis moved back in, but he has received the infrequent, generic holiday texts from Niall and Liam. Maybe Harry’s just going to have to accept that he won’t ever get Zayn back into his life, that the damage he had done was irreversible. 

“So,” Louis says, stretching out in the seat. “You didn’t tell her that you got into that internship. Why?”

And, well. That’s easy. “Because I should have been doing an internship for the last year, like you have been.”

He applied for an internship last month and was accepted recently. It’s at a reputable law firm, which is good; as much as it was probably a little odd for a 3L not to have been in an internship already, it did mean that he was more educated than the average 2L, so they cancelled each other out. He’ll be working there during the summer, praying every minute that he’s there that someone sees something in him, and enough of something to hire him. He’s trying not to stress about it. 

“You still got in,” Louis says, confused. “You still are going to do it. We’re still young, Haz, not like you’re too far behind to catch up.”

Sometimes Harry feels a billion years old. Not because he feels wise, or anything, but because he feels like he’s been tired for ages. Longer than how long it’s actually been. So Louis’ right: he supposes that it’s okay that he’s a little behind because he’s still here. He still has time to catch up.

“Yeah, I know.”

Louis nods, and then he says, “I’m so bloody relieved we’ll be graduating soon. I’m so sick of school.”

Louis decided he was going to work in pediatrics, which -- Harry can’t even imagine that. Louis’ job is gross, first of all. Harry couldn’t take cleaning sick or changing bedpans. And then to add all the sad faces to the mix. . . Well, Harry couldn’t handle it, but he’s bloody proud of Louis regardless. 

“Liam’s girlfriend is throwing a graduation party at her house, after graduation,” Louis tells him. He sounds uncertain, a bit. “Would you want to go?”

“Would _you_ want me to go?” Harry asks, careful. 

“Don’t see why not. Could invite Nick, too. I don’t care.”

Harry nods, biting on his bottom lip. “Yeah, sure. Sounds fun.”

It does, but the last time there was a party after the semester ended, Harry cursed out his best friend so badly that he still won’t talk to him. Hopefully this time around goes better. He can just stick to Louis and Nick the entire night, hide behind them. It’s two months out, anyway. No point in already deeming it a bust. 

“And Niall invited us out for drinks next weekend,” Louis says, sounding even more uncertain than the last time. He looks over at Harry nervously. “Both of us.”

Next weekend is a lot closer than two months from now. Harry sucks in a sharp breath as he tries not to get into his head too much. He wants to get back into touch with them; he has to try, eventually. Next week is as good as any. “Did _he_ ask both of us, or did you ask him to invite me, too?”

“He invited us, I swear it. Liam and Niall talked about it, apparently, and they’re risking pissing Zayn off by talking to you again.”

Harry rolls his eyes. Stupid Zayn. He’s mostly calmed his anger by now -- addressing your problems and getting them healthily works, apparently -- but something about Zayn immediately gets his blood boiling. “That’s nice of them,” he forces himself to say. Louis is for sure sick of hearing the two of them bitch about each other. “Just the four of us, then?”

Louis nods. “And Nick, if you want. If that’ll make you more comfortable.”

“I’ll ask,” Harry agrees, nodding. 

Louis looks surprised. “So you’ll go?”

“Yeah,” Harry mumbles, nodding. “Why not?”

He can think of a million reasons as to why not, but they all fade away when Louis presses a happy kiss to his cheek. 

-

On Sunday, an hour and a half before Louis and Harry are leaving to pick up Nick, Harry’s already getting dressed and ready to go. He’s stressed, alright; not only is he going to see Niall and Liam for the first time in forever tonight, he’s also going to be at a pub and he’s not allowed to get drunk. Louis didn’t say that, of course, but Harry feels like this is some sort of test somehow. It’s probably not (and Mr. Helms frowned when he told him that he thought it was), but regardless, Harry’s going to limit himself to two or three drinks tonight to make a point. He doesn’t rely on alcohol, not even a little bit. 

“Are antidepressants really supposed to make you, like, balloon up?” Harry asks grumpily, staring at himself in the mirror. He continues to gain weight, and it’s not exactly a problem, it’s just not a side effect he was expecting. He watches Louis in the mirror, and he rolls his eyes at Harry. 

“You’re not ballooning up, darling. You’ve barely just got back to the weight you were last year.”

Harry eyes the little squish he has on his hips now that has always been there before and suddenly melted away last year, knowing Louis’ right. 

“And you’ve been eating more,” Louis adds. “Like, a normal amount. That has something to do with it, too.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

Louis sits up in bed, staring at Harry. He’s probably not going to pull himself out of bed to get ready until five minutes before they have to leave, and Harry envies his nonchalance about this. (While also hoping seeing Niall and Liam can become just as normal to him soon, and feeling relieved that Louis had them to count on when Harry was unreliable as all hell.) “You look good,” Louis tells him. “You’ll always look good.”

“Of course I do,” Harry snorts, stepping away from the mirror and opening the drawer. He doesn’t completely believe that, but the way Louis scoffs at him and chucks a pillow at his head makes him feel better about it, so. 

Fifteen minutes later, Harry’s dressed in a black t-shirt, black pants, black vans and a casual light pink button-up that he lets hang open. He’s not used to caring about what he looks like anymore, and he’s still trying to figure out what he feels best in. A few minutes later, he’s messing with his hair in the mirror. He got it cut just before he went to his mum’s, and he’s not used to how short it is now. He never meant for it to get as long as it did. He’s standing in the mirror with his hands in his hair when Louis comes into the bathroom and bats his hands away. 

“No point in doing it before you blow me. Just going to get all messy again.”

Harry scoffs at him, looking at him through the mirror again. He’s such a little shit sometimes. “Who says I’m doing that?”

“I could do you.”

With less authority in his voice the first time, “We have to leave soon.”

“In an _hour_.”

He steps behind Harry, wrapping an arm around his waist and pulling him close, and Harry sighs, letting his arms drop to his side. “Fine. But you’re blowing me, and you better not get any come on my pants.”

Louis does. On purpose. And he thinks it’s way funnier than it actually is, but now Harry doesn’t have the energy to be mad. He’s pretty sure that was Louis’ whole goal here: getting Harry to calm down a bit. It worked, and now he’s too tired to get out of bed, let alone worry about seeing people. 

The feeling lasts for a few minutes, but once he’s pulled himself out of bed to change his pants, the nerves come back. Not as intensely, though, and now Louis’ next to him in the bathroom mirror, both of them fixing their hair, and it’s nicer to feel in tune with him. 

“Just don’t think about it too much,” Louis tells him, bumping his hip into Harry’s. “Just be you, okay? And if you start to feel cranky, just. . . stop talking.” He laughs a little as he shoots him an apologetic look, even though there’s nothing to be sorry for. Harry gets moody when he’s stressed -- and that probably explains his shitty attitude from before. He was always worried or upset, and that made him moody. 

“As if anybody is going to be able to get a word in over Nick,” Harry mumbles. He drops a kiss to Louis’ shoulder before stepping out of the bathroom, and Louis smiles at him as he goes. 

-

Niall and Liam are about four shots deep by the time Louis, Harry and Nick come in. They said they were bored and came earlier, and Harry wonders if that’s true or if they felt like they couldn’t take seeing Harry sober. Maybe it’s self-absorbed to think he’s that intimidating, but he can feel them _stare_ at him whenever he isn’t looking. He’s being watched, critiqued; after he’s said hello and sat down, Niall and Liam look to each other nervously. When he orders himself a mojito, Liam shoots Niall a glance. When Louis subconsciously moves his seat closer to Harry and presses their arms together, Niall raises his eyebrow at Liam. 

Jesus, he thought Zayn was harsh. And they aren’t trying to be mean, he knows that. They don’t trust him, and that’s fair. But it’s nerve-wracking and makes him want to drink his mojito faster than he lets himself. 

“So, Harry,” Liam starts after everyone’s gotten their drinks. “How’s uni?”

This is going to be painfully uncomfortable. Harry forces himself to deal with it. 

“Uh, fine. Boring. Lots of work. Nothing’s really changed.”

Liam nods. “Still planning on doing corporate law?”

“That’s the plan, yeah.” He glances down at his drink and asks, “Still doing your biology stuff?”

The laugh Liam lets out is genuine, and Harry feels himself get warm at the sound. “Bioengineering, yeah.”

Niall snorts. “I think that’s the only thing more boring than corporate law.”

“Teaching 3L’s who think they’re a lot smarter than they really are is pretty boring, too,” Nick says from beside him. He had ordered two drinks, and he’s already almost done with them both. Harry wants to catch up and then some, but he forces himself to stick with taking small sips for now. It’s harder than it ought to be, especially when he finds himself keeping count of what everyone else has had. 

Louis may have had a point, but he’s not going to let him know that. Two drinks -- that’s all Harry will have. 

He’s down five drinks an hour later, and he can feel himself starting to slip, a little bit. He’s just tipsy, nothing too bad -- better than the reset of them, except for Louis, who is the designated driver home and only had the one shot of tequila. He declined the offer of another drink a few minutes ago, but now he finds himself eyeing Nick’s margarita. The urge to get completely, one-hundred percent drunk is more powerful than he’d like to admit it. There’s no reason for it; everyone’s having a good conversation and having fun, and Louis is leaned against him, his hand on Harry’s thigh. Harry wasn’t always the type of person to want to get wasted like this, being tipsy used to be his only goal so he wouldn’t wake up with a horrible hangover the next day, but God, he wants another drink. And another and another and another. 

So, yeah. Maybe he is a social-drinker. And maybe that’s not the right term, but that’s the only one Harry feels comfortable with because he’s literally never like this when he’s just at home with Louis. 

He ends up having one, _one_ more, right before they leave, and it’s only because Louis steals it from Nick and hands it to Harry when Nick isn’t looking. He’s smashed, equally as gone as Liam and Niall are, and Louis mumbles that he doesn’t want him puking in the car. Nick doesn’t even notice, and Harry downs the coke and rum easily. 

“Alright,” Louis says with a loud sigh once Harry sets the glass down on the table. He stands up from the table. “I’ve got to take this one home before he embarrasses himself.” Nick is overly offended by that, and Harry laughs and shushes him. “You two alright to get a taxi home?”

“Uber, mate,” Niall says, nodding. “Nobody uses taxis anymore.”

“Right,” Louis says. He hugs Liam and Niall easily, and while he’s doing that, Harry stands and pretends to look busy with helping Nick to his feet to avoid any awkward hugs. It doesn’t really work; Niall yanks him over before he can get very far, and the hug isn’t awkward at all, actually, just really, really nice. 

“Love you, mate,” Niall mumbles, and then he pushes him off towards Liam. Liam hugs him, too, and even though it’s a little less relaxed than the hug with Niall, it’s still a nice hug. 

“I’ll talk to Zayn again, okay?” he slurs into Harry’s ear, patting his back. “You’re a nice bloke. Louis loves you so much, man.”

“You’re so drunk,” Louis laughs behind them, tugging Harry back. He has Nick leaned into his shoulder, mumbling something about nothing, and Harry takes him from him so Louis isn’t the one to be barfed on, if such a thing is coming. 

-

“You’re not really supposed to drink alcohol with your antidepressant.”

Harry stares at the computer screen, feeling a little caught under Mr. Helms stare. Oops, yeah, he did sort of forget about that. But nothing happened, and Louis didn’t discourage it, so whatever. 

“Oh,” he mumbles. “Yeah, right. I, uh. Forgot.”

“Just try to be more mindful, okay?” Mr. Helms says, in a way that clearly indicates that he knows Harry didn’t just forget. He lets it go, moving on to say, “If you only feel the urge to drink excessively during social situations, perhaps you have a mild case of social anxiety.”

Harry frowns at that. He’s momentarily distracted by a clunking noise coming from the kitchen -- he stopped scheduling his therapy appointments around when Louis wouldn’t be home a while back ago. There’s no point in hiding it, not when there’s nothing to hide and Louis gives him privacy anyway.

“I always used to be, like, super extroverted at parties and stuff. I don’t think that’s the sort of thing that just changes.”

Mr. Helms shrugs. “But you always said you never felt the urge to drink before like you now do, either.”

“Fair,” Harry mumbles, sighing quietly. 

“You’re still a young adult,” he says. “The brain is an ever-changing organ. And you did go through some trauma, which can impact the brain in all sorts of ways.”

Harry has to make a face at that -- trauma, really? What trauma has he really experienced? But Mr. Helms is quick to explain. 

“You were under a prolonged period of stress,” he says, “and it negatively impacted your emotional and physical state. To me, that counts as a trauma. Yeah, when I say traumatic experience, you probably think of war or a shooting -- something like that. But chronic trauma is different, it’s more complex than that.”

Harry doesn’t particularly want to address that right now. One problem at a time. “And -- what? You think that my depression, like, gave me social anxiety?”

“No, I wouldn’t say that. But I would say your period of almost complete isolation and complicated relationships made you more conscious of how people think about you. After not interacting with people for that long -- it’s not difficult to imagine that changed your social habits.”

“But I felt mostly fine last night. Like, I was thinking a lot and, like, nervous, but I wouldn’t say it was like -- a thing. It wasn’t a thing.”

Mr. Helms seems mildly amused by that. “I think it could have been a thing, but let’s wait and see, alright? Next time you go out with friends, pay attention to how you’re feeling. To what you’re thinking. To how much you’re thinking about drinking. Alcohol might be your body’s way of trying to calm down, since alcohol can be calming for some people.”

“Okay,” Harry agrees. It feels counterproductive, therapy giving him more things to worry about, but at the same time, he enjoys understanding himself a little more because of it. 

-

It becomes increasingly obvious that Liam and Niall really were just holding out for Zayn to forgive Harry, too. After the night in the pub, Harry’s getting invited to everything that Zayn declines, which is often because it’s Zayn and he values his sleep more than the rest of them. He gets put into a group chat with just the four of them, too, which is somehow a little overwhelming at first. It's just a bunch of memes and shit-talking, really, so Harry gets used to it quickly. And within a month, it’s like they’re completely normal and Harry is slowly starting to forget what it was like having no friends at all. 

(He could never forget it, not really. Living it was torturous, but looking back on it, it’s. . . He completely isolated himself. Common sense alone tells him now that that isn’t normal, but Mr. Helms reminds him constantly that isolation is incredibly bad for humans. Harry’s glad he squirmed his way out of it when he did -- the next step was losing Louis, and then he really would have been alone completely.)

Of course, Zayn gets brought up almost every time the four of them talk. Zayn does live with Liam and Niall, and Louis still sees him all the time. Each time they tell Harry with these stupidly pitying faces that Zayn is still being a stubborn fuck, it takes his self-control down another peg. 

The tipping point is when Liam texts Louis that Zayn threw a bit of hissy fit when Liam asked if Harry could tag along to a movie they’re all seeing this weekend. A bloody _movie_ ; Zayn wouldn’t have to _talk_ to Harry, wouldn’t even have to _look_ at him. Sure, Zayn probably wouldn’t make a big deal if Harry came anyway, but Jesus Christ, Harry’s about had enough. 

He calls Zayn when he knows for a fact that he is home alone. Logically, calling someone to talk through things when he’s pretty sure his blood is almost literally boiling is probably a bad idea, but Zayn answers, so it doesn’t matter. 

He takes a deep breath, tries to calm down, but when he opens his mouth, the words, “Can you stop being such a bloody prick?” come out. And he’s not even sorry. 

Zayn scoffs. “And they said you’ve changed.”

“I _have,_ ” Harry seethes. “I haven’t fought with Louis in so fucking long _, so_ long. And you said you’d forgive me once I proved that I could make things right with Louis. Well, I _have_. If Louis’ own _mum_ can forgive me, why can’t you?”

“Maybe I don’t want to.”

“ _Clearly._ I get the fucking message, Zayn. I understand. But I want to move on from all of this.”

“Then move on. Go right ahead.”

“Not without you,” Harry shouts, feeling breathless. “Zayn, mate, come _on_. We were best friends. I fucked up, yes, but holding it over my head like this, putting Niall and Liam in a weird position -- that’s fucked, too.”

Zayn is silent for about a minute, and just when Harry’s about to snap again, he speaks. “How could someone who had no problem abandoning me a few months ago be saying all this now? Why should I give you another chance when you could just push me out again?”

Harry lets out a harsh sigh, finally feeling like they’re getting somewhere. 

“I am sorry,” he says, not letting himself get angry. “Seriously, Zayn. I am. But it. . . it wasn’t personal.”

Zayn makes a surprised sound. “No? Because all the shit you said to me felt pretty fucking personal.”

“I know,” Harry mumbles miserably. “I know, mate. But it wasn’t about _you_ , I wasn’t mad at _you_ , I was just -- mad. Really hurt, for no real reason. And that’s so unfair and not even a good explanation, I understand that, but I need you to understand that it was not about you. I loved you. I still love you. I was completely heartbroken when you moved out, and I still miss you being around here sometimes. And. . . and I won’t mess up as badly again, I don’t think. I have off days, but compared to how I was before, I’m still a fucking saint on those days. And it wasn’t just a few months ago, Zayn, it was almost a year ago now.”

“You got everyone to forgive you so fucking fast. It was like you didn’t even do anything wrong. I don’t think that’s very fair, man.”

Harry doesn’t agree with that at all, but whatever. He’s feelings are important here. 

“So you’re punishing me because you think everybody else was too soft on me?”

Hesitantly, “I guess.”

“I almost lost Louis,” he says quietly. “I almost flunked out of university, I’m behind in my career, Niall and Liam have only started talking to me again recently. Don’t you -- I mean, dude, this has been the worst year of my entire life. Don’t you think I’ve already suffered enough of the consequences?”

He purposely doesn’t bring up the fact he almost died. If Zayn feels like he hasn’t hurt enough, then fine. He won’t guilt him into changing his mind. 

It feels like the biggest step in the right direction when Zayn mumbles, sounding irritated, “I guess.” Two simple words that aren’t even all that convincing are enough to make Harry let out a sigh of relief so big that it makes him feel a little dizzy.

“You don’t have to trust me,” Harry says. “You don’t even have to become close to me again if you don’t want to, I just want us to a least be amicable.”

Zayn sighs. “That’s the problem, H. If I let you back in, then I’m going to get just as attached to you as I was before.”

“And that’s not okay?”

“Maybe it can be,” Zayn says reluctantly. “Maybe, I don’t know.”

Harry nods to himself. “Well, can we please find out?”

“I guess so.”

A silence takes over, and Harry’s okay with it. He’s more than okay with it; silence like this is so much better than hostile words thrown at each other. They’re on shared territory now, looking each other in the eye, and that’s all Harry wants. 

His knees nearly buckle when Zayn says, “Do you want to come over to smoke, then?”

No. Not at all, really. Harry doesn’t like smoking and he never has. And he’ll set that boundary, he will, but when he gets there. 

“Yeah, mate,” he whispers. “Of course.”

-

They don’t really talk, but they don’t really have to. Not yet. Sitting together with their shoulders touched from how they’re leaning into each other, Zayn’s smoke so close that Harry swears he’s getting high from it himself, is enough. They’re watching a show together, and there are infrequent comments on the plot. Zayn offers him a hit four separate times in a way that’s a clear attempt at conversation, but Harry doesn’t feel like smoking. Drinking, on the other hand. . . If Zayn had offered him a beer, he would’ve accepted one. Or maybe three our four. But he doesn't, and Harry doesn’t ask. 

He says he’s going to get going soon around six. “I should be back before Louis gets home,” he says as he stands up. His head feels a little fuzzy, a little sluggish. Not enough to deter him from driving, though. 

“Why?” Zayn asks. “Am I gonna be your dirty little secret?”

He’s grinning, so Harry rolls his eyes at him. “Please,” he mumbles. He grabs his shoes from the door and slides them on. “I’m in charge of dinner tonight.”

“Ah, that’s right. You’re cooking again. Makes Louis’ life a lot easier.”

“Yeah, it does. Not much of a cook, is he?”

“No, he is,” Zayn says, leaning back into the couch more. “Just pretends not to be because he likes to be taken care of.”

Harry stands up straighter and tries to work out if that was a dig or not. He assumes it must be. “I really have been better, mate. And I know I was a prick, and I know -- ”

“Hey,” Zayn interrupts, raising his hand. “I wasn’t slagging you off. I was just saying.”

Harry nods. “Oh, alright.”

“You can go,” he says, giving him a nod of approval. “I’ll see you at the movie, then.”

Harry smiles gently. “You’re going to let me come?”

“You’re quite stubborn,” Zayn says, a bit fond. “I don’t think I have a choice. And that means Louis will eat all your popcorn instead of mine, so yeah. You can come.”

“Cheers, mate,” Harry says, feeling proud. He leaves, and when he gets to his car, he realizes he was smiling the entire walk.

-

Harry’s almost finished with the stir-fry when Louis gets home. How happy he gets when Louis comes home or he gets to come home to Louis is stupidly sweet. He says hello as he stirs, and Louis comes over to press a kiss to his cheek. He pulls away and looks at Harry with confused eyes. 

“You smell like weed. I didn’t know Nick smoked.”

“First of all, I changed my clothes, so I don’t know how you still smell it. Second of all, it wasn’t Nick.” He pauses for dramatic effect, feeling giddy with this. “It was Zayn.”

Louis snorts. “Horrible cover story to hide cheating, babe,” he says, but he’s grinning. Harry decides that deserve a shove, anyway, and Louis laughs, coming back to crowd into his space, his hands pressed to Harry’s hips. “Really, though? You two didn’t fight?”

“Of course we fought,” Harry says. “But I think we figured it out. There’s some, like. . . respect back that wasn’t there on either side. I think we’ll be okay.”

“You will,” Louis promises. He kisses Harry’s cheek again before he tells him he’s going to take a quick shower before dinner. As he goes, Harry feels a sense of peace that is slowly becoming normal to him. 

He gave himself another chance, and he doesn’t regret it at all. 

-

The day they graduate is genuinely a blur. 

He remembers getting ready with Louis, both of them equally nervous for once, and then it’s like all the sudden he had a diploma in his hand. Vaguely, he remembers taking pictures with the boys and his mum and sister and Nick, but most of all, he remembers the feeling. 

Underneath the red, hot stress, there’s a pocket of relief and pride that opens every time he reminds himself that he almost took away his shot at being here. Louis touching his hand, his mum kissing his forehead, Zayn tackling him after the ceremony was over -- all he felt was pure, unrelenting pride. 

After the ceremony, everyone goes home really fast to change, put their diplomas somewhere safe and, in Harry and Louis’ case, fuck in the shower really fast. Tomorrow, they’ll all go out with their parents and celebrate with them, but tonight, they’re going to a trashy house party, where they’ll indulge themselves in cheap beer and momentarily forget what comes after this. 

Harry can’t forget, and he doesn’t want to. He clings to the years to come and keeps them close to his chest; internships and job opportunities, parties and movie nights. Louis’ going into pediatric nursing and Liam’s starting a job soon and Niall is taking the summer off to go to Ireland and Zayn is thinking about going back to school to become an art professor. And -- God, marriage proposals and weddings and babies. A fancy house and a fancy yard and a spoiled dog or two. 

He’s here, today, sitting in between Louis and Zayn in the dark, a bonfire in front of them, so he gets to be there for all of that, too. Instead of taking it all away, he gave himself the chance to have more than he could have ever hoped for. 

It’s quiet; Zayn, Louis and Niall are too stoned to be as rowdy as they were earlier, and Nick and Liam look deep in thought from across the fire. It’s just the crackling of the fire, their breathing, the faint voices trickling from the inside since it’s freezing out and nobody wanted to join them -- it’s quiet, and it’s peaceful. And not because it has to be, but because it is. 

-

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you liked it! comment if you want :)) xx
> 
> tumblr: bravestylesao3 (i posted a moodboard for this story here!)  
> twitter: bravestylesao3 (i posted it here too lol)  
> come talk to me if you want, i love talking to you all!!


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